THE  LIVING  WORD 


ELWOOD 
WORCESTER 


LIBRARY 

OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 

Class 


THE  LIVING  WORD 


THE 
LIYING    WORD 


BY 

ELWOOD   WORCESTER 
* 


Der  Abgrund  meines  Geist's  ruft  immer  mit  Geschrei 
Den  Abgrund  Gottes  an :  sag\  welcher  tiefer  sei. 

ANGELUS  SILESIUS. 


NEW  YORK 
MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 

1908 


Copyright,  1908,  by 

MOFFAT,  YARD  &  COMPANY 
NEW    YORK 


All  rights  reserved  including  translation 
and  reproduction 

Published,  November,  1908 
Second  printing,  December,  1908. 


GENERAL 


The  Plimpton  Press  Norwood  Mass. 


TO 

MAYA 


182307 


PREFACE 

THE  following  pages  contain  certain 
thoughts  which  have  long  brightened  my  life, 
yet  for  which  I  can  claim  little  originality. 
This  book  owes  its  existence,  its  substance 
and  whatever  merit  it  possesses  to  one  of  the 
greatest  and  least  appreciated  thinkers  of 
the  nineteenth  century,  Gustav  Theodor 
Fechner.  It  was  my  privilege  to  know  Fech- 
ner  in  Leipzig  shortly  before  his  death.  The 
effect  of  his  personality  and  of  his  thought 
marked  a  turning-point  in  my  life,  and  his 
influence  has  deepened  with  the  passing 
years.  Fechner,  like  Balzac,  was  so  abso- 
lutely original  and  so  far  in  advance  of  his 
time  that  his  words  fell  on  unheeding  ears. 
Only  the  least  of  his  works  has  been  trans- 
lated into  English,  and  most  of  them  remain 
in  the  quaint  form  in  which  they  were  pub- 


Vll 


PREFACE 

lished  forty  or  fifty  years  ago.  This  is  prob- 
ably due  to  the  charming  fancies  in  which 
Fechner  indulged  himself  as  to  the  souls  of 
plants,  and  stars  and  men,  which  to  a  mate- 
rialistic age  seemed  scarcely  worth  refuting, 
but  which  we  do  not  find  so  absurd.  Fechner 
was  also  at  incredible  pains  to  answer  objec- 
tions with  arguments  which  to  his  contempo- 
raries seemed  highly  fantastic.  Yet  it  is 
doubtful  if  Europe  during  the  century  of  its 
greatest  philosophical  activity  produced  a  pro- 
founder  or  a  more  fruitful  religious  thinker. 
The  peculiar  charm  of  Fechner's  writings  is 
that  he  deals  with  God,  the  world  and  the 
soul  as  real  and  living  beings,  not  as  barren 
abstractions.  The  simplicity  of  his  faith  and 
the  poetic  beauty  of  his  style  are  infinitely 
refreshing  to  a  mind  weary  of  the  fatiguing 
terminology  of  most  philosophic  literature. 
The  greater  of  Fechner's  works  can  be  com- 
pared only  with  the  Sacred  Books  of  the 
nations.  They  are  inspired,  and  they  contain 


Vlll 


PREFACE 

a  true  revelation  of  God.  As  he  himself  said 
of  the  Bible,  "A  breath  proceeds  from  it 
which  is  not  merely  living  but  life-giving." 
I  can  say  of  them  what  Schopenhauer  said  of 
the  TJpanishads.  "They  have  been  the  con- 
solation of  my  life  and  they  will  be  the  conso- 
lation of  my  death."  Pfleiderer  pronounced 
Fechner's  Three  Motives  of  Faith  the  best 
argument  for  God  which  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury produced.  Ebbinghaus  dedicates  his 
great  psychology  to  Fechner  in  a  little  poem 
which  runs  like  this:  "Master,  if  I  consider 
the  strokes  of  my  pen,  or  the  diligence  with 
which  this  book  has  been  written,  I  may  call 
it  my  own.  But  when  I  remember  from 
whom  it  all  comes  and  whither  it  tends,  I 
must  own  that  it  is  thine."  With  even  deeper 
humility  I  echo  these  words.  Paulsen  con- 
stantly alludes  to  Fechner  in  terms  of  respect 
and  admiration.  Mobius  has  written  most 
interestingly  of  him.  Professor  James' 
splendid  thought  is  saturated  with  Fechner. 


IX 


PREFACE 

A  new  edition  of  the  Zend  Avesta  has 
appeared.  In  short,  like  other  men  too 
great  for  their  age,  the  world  is  overtaking 
him  and  he  is  coming  to  his  own. 

The  form  of  this  book  has  cost  me  no  little 
anxiety.  I  desired  to  do  honor  to  the  mem- 
ory of  a  beloved  teacher,  and  I  wished  also 
to  present  certain  of  Fechner's  wonderful 
ideas  to  an  audience  which  I  believe  is  waiting 
for  them.  At  first  I  intended  to  make  my 
work  a  mere  exposition  and  a  series  of  quo- 
tations.1 This,  however,  seemed  to  me  tame 
and  unsatisfactory.  The  thought  had  be- 
come too  much  my  own.  I  therefore  decided 
that  I  would  reproduce  some  of  Fechner's 
thoughts  in  the  form  which  in  the  course  of 
years  they  had  assumed  in  my  own  mind, 
employing  his  language  or  my  own  as  it 
occurred  to  me,  and  adding  what  I  chose. 
The  result  is  a  book  which  belongs  neither  to 
Fechner  nor  to  me,  but  which  I  hope  will  be 
useful.  In  preparing  it  I  have  consulted 


PREFACE 

Fechner's  works  very  little  as  I  preferred  to 
have  it  consist  like  the  Gospels  of  memories 
too  vivid  to  be  forgotten.  On  reflection,  I 
am  not  sure  that  I  am  more  indebted  to 
Fechner  for  these  thoughts  than  Fechner 
was  indebted  for  them  to  the  wonderful 
poet  Riickert.  Riickert  in  his  turn  drew 
his  treasures  of  wisdom  from  the  East, 
ransacking  whole  literatures,  and  giving 
back  gold  for  the  silver  he  abstracted 
from  the  Brahmans.  Thoughts  of  this 
order  do  not  originate  in  one  brain.  A 
considerable  portion  of  mankind  has  worked 
over  them. 

For  the  past  generation  men  have  been 
groping  for  a  theology  which  should  approach 
the  old  mysteries  God,  evil,  the  soul  and 
immortality  from  the  point  of  view  of  modern 
scientific  and  philosophic  thought.  The  old 
static  aspect  of  the  universe  has  been  sup- 
planted by  the  dynamic.  The  old  transcend- 
ent conception  of  God  has  yielded  to  the 


XI 


PREFACE 

immanent.  The  thought  of  God  as  mere 
ruler  and  judge  is  no  longer  sufficient  for 
men's  religious  needs.  Science  has  discov- 
ered God  at  work,  and  religion  also  craves  a 
spiritual  and  an  active  Deity  who  works 
through  laws  and  through  us. 

Although  this  simple  volume  makes  ab- 
solutely no  claim  to  be  a  compendium  of 
theology,  it  does  attempt  to  grapple  with 
some  of  the  greatest  problems  of  that  great 
science,  the  nature  of  God,  and  God's  rela- 
tion to  the  soul.  On  what  does  our  faith  in 
God  rest,  and  how  do  we  come  to  it?  How 
is  God's  goodness  compatible  with  the  evil  of 
the  world  ?  Are  there  other  spiritual  beings  ? 
What  is  death,  and  on  what  grounds  do  we 
hope  to  survive  it?  In  what  sense  is  Christ 
the  Mediator  between  God  and  man  ?  Sim- 
ple and  informal  as  is  this  treatise,  thinkers 
will  perceive  that  its  arguments  are  not  lightly 
conceived  nor  superficial.  In  writing  it,  I 
have  had  two  classes  of  persons  in  mind:  the 


Xll 


PREFACE 

scientifically  educated,  who  feel  that  rational 
faith  must  rest  on  facts,  and  that  great  com- 
pany of  men  and  women  who  do  not  think 
profoundly  or  systematically  but  who  desire 
a  religious  interpretation  of  the  universe  and 
reassurance  as  to  the  supreme  problems  which 
eternally  press  on  human  life.  I  also  hope 
that  those  who  have  a  more  personal  motive 
at  stake  may  find  consolation  in  the  pages 
which  deal  with  death  and  the  life  after  death. 
Far  from  exhausting  Fechner's  thought  these 
pages  are  like  a  single  goblet  of  water  drawn 
from  a  deep  and  crystal  lake.  Those  who 
find  refreshment  therein  will  know  where  to 
go  to  satisfy  their  thirst. 

After  days  and  weeks  spent  in  quiet  con- 
templation of  the  ultimate  mysteries  or  real- 
ities with  which  this  book  is  concerned,  I  ask 
myself  once  more,  is  this  and  are  all  similar 
attempts  to  interpret  reality  absolutely  vain  ? 
The  answer  I  receive  is:  not  so,  as  long  as 
God  plants  eternity  in  our  hearts.  Not  so, 


Xlll 


PREFACE 

since  I  cannot  deliver  myself  from  these 
musings  if  I  would.  I  know  very  well  that 
such  a  book  as  this  settles  no  problems,  closes 
no  questions.  At  best,  it  is  but  an  approxi- 
mation toward  truth,  a  new  statement  of 
certain  aspects  of  man's  destiny  which  may 
bring  the  final  solution  one  step  nearer.  Yet 
the  step  taken  I  believe  is  in  the  right  direc- 
tion. What  we  need  is  a  cosmical  theology 
that  does  not  lose  the  soul  in  God,  nor  sacrifice 
the  individual  to  the  universal,  nor  the  ethical 
to  the  merely  speculative,  nor  man  to  Nature. 
It  is  idle  to  say,  let  us  have  no  more  theolo- 
gies, while  men  of  the  stamp  of  Haeckel 
cannot  help  writing  them.  Banish  rational 
religious  faith  and  you  open  the  door  to 
superstition  and  to  aberrations  of  every  kind. 
Deny  the  soul,  and  how  can  you  expect  man 
to  live  otherwise  than  as  an  animal?  What 
we  see  to-day  is  a  reaction  from  the  scientific 
materialism  in  which  we  grew  up,  a  general 
revolt  in  the  name  of  the  soul,  a  desire  for  a 


XIV 


PREFACE 

more  spiritual  life  and  a  more  spiritual  inter- 
pretation of  life.  It  is  with  the  hope  of 
helping  this  movement  on,  though  ever  so 
little,  that  I  offer  this  volume.  I  have  called 
it  "The  Living  Word"  in  memory  of  the 
Zend  Avesta  which  Fechner  believed  to  have 
that  meaning. 


ELWOOD  WORCESTER. 


EMMANUEL  CHURCH,  BOSTON. 
July,  1908. 


XV 


CONTENTS 

PART   I 

CHAP.  PAGE 

Preface vii 

I.    The  Three  Motives  of  Faith  in  God        .      .  3 

II.    The  Traditional  Motive 17 

III.  The  Practical  Motive 37 

IV.  The  Rational  Motive        .       .       .      .      .      .61 

V.    The  Spiritual  Nature  of  God        ....  83 

VI.    Man's  Life  in  God 105 

VII.    The  Goodness  of  God  and  the  Evil  of  the 

World 131 

VIII.    On  Good  and  Evil 155 

IX.    On  the  Angels 175 

PART   II 

X.    On  Death  and  the  Life  after  Death         .      .  185 

XL    What  is  Death?          197 

XII.    On  the  Spiritual  Body 229 

XIII.  Immortality  and  the  Brain 257 

XIV.  The  Soul  and  Death 289 

XV.    Eternal  Life 313 

XVI.    The  Word  of  God 331 


xvn 


PART  I 


Ein  Mensch  sein  ohne  Gott,  was  ist  das  fur  ein  Sein! 
Ein  bessres  hat  das  Tier,  die  Pflanze,  ja  der  Stein. 
Derm  Stein  und  Pflanz'  und  Tier,  die  zwar  um  Gott  nicht 

wissen, 

Er  aber  weiss  um  sie,  sie  sind  ihm  nicht  entrissen. 
Sie  sind  nicht  los  von  Gott,  gottlos  bist  du  allein, 
Mensch,  der  du  fiihlst  mit  ihm,  und  leugnest  den  Verein. 

RUCKERT,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 
Th.  Ill,  s.  144. 


CHAPTER  I 

THE    THREE   MOTIVES   OF   FAITH    IN   GOD 

THE  chief  assumption  I  shall  make  in  this 
discussion  is  as  to  the  spiritual  nature  of  God, 
and  I  do  not  think  that  this  assumption  needs 
any  defense  or  apology.  Of  the  two  forms  of 
existence  under  which  reality  reveals  itself 
to  man,  spirit  and  matter,  religion  has  always 
sought  for  God  within  the  domain  of  the  spirit, 
and  has  rejected  with  abhorrence  the  thought 
that  God  is  a  material  object.  Even  fetichism 
does  not  adore  the  bare  thing,  but  the  invisible 
potent  presence  supposed  to  lurk  within  that 
thing.  For  religion  the  final  word  on  this 
subject  is  the  saying  ascribed  to  Jesus  in  the 
fourth  Gospel,  "God  is  Spirit,  and  they  that 
worship. Him  must  worship  Him  in  spirit  and 
in  truth."  By  God,  then,  I  understand  the 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

one  eternal,  all-comprehending  Spirit  within, 
above,  or  behind  this  universe.  Our  problem 
is  not  exactly  how  faith  in  such  a  Being  arose, 
which  would  be  a  purely  historical  inquiry,  but 
how  faith  in  such  a  Being  is  justified,  how  it 
acquires  its  power  over  the  human  mind,  and 
whether  it  is  likely  indefinitely  to  maintain 
itself  in  the  face  of  the  facts  of  modern  life 
and  knowledge.  In  other  words,  our  problem 
is  the  roots  and  motives  of  faith  in  God. 

Faith  we  may  define  in  the  largest  sense  as 
the  mind's  acceptance  of  the  truth  and  reality 
of  those  things  which  can  neither  be  presented 
to  the  senses  nor  proved  by  logic.  In  this 
large  significance,  faith  is  one  of  the  common- 
est things  on  earth.  It  is  incredible  how  many 
things  are  believed  in  the  world.  But  among 
these  innumerable  beliefs  there  is  also  a  higher 
belief, — faith  in  the  highest,  greatest,  last  and 
deepest  things, —  faith  in  God  and  God's  in 
providence,  faith  in  the  soul  and  in  its  eternal 
destiny.  This  higher  and  highest  faith  is  not 


THE    THREE   MOTIVES    OF   FAITH 

essentially  different  from  other  kinds  of  faith. 
It  only  forms  the  apex  of  normal  human  belief. 
Without  faith  in  many  other  things  we  should 
not  come  to  faith  in  God. 

I  would  next  remind  the  reader  that  there 
is  no  inherent  contradiction  or  quarrel  be- 
tween faith  and  knowledge,  but  that  one 
supplements  and  helps  the  other,  faith  con- 
tinually leading  the  way  to  new  knowledge. 
There  are  many  things  in  this  world  which  we 
imagine  we  know  but  which  we  only  believe. 
In  fact,  outside  the  domain  of  mathematics 
and  logic,  our  knowledge  is  very  limited,  and 
even  these  sciences  are  unable  to  prove  their 
own  first  principles,  but  are  forced  to  appeal 
to  an  inner  sense  in  man,  to  which  faith  also 
appeals.  Perhaps  I  can  sum  up  their  relations 
by  saying  that  if  all  knowledge  were  with- 
drawn from  faith  nothing  would  remain  but 
the  grossest  superstition,  and  hardly  the 
material  for  that,  while  if  all  faith  were  with- 
drawn from  knowledge  we  should  possess 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

little  beyond  the  impressions  of  our  senses 
and  the  void  of  mathematics.  Therefore 
neither  the  man  of  faith  nor  the  man  of  knowl- 
edge can  afford  to  despise  the  other.  Is  faith, 
then,  merely  an  imperfect  form  of  knowledge, 
which  knowledge  ultimately  will  supplant? 
In  one  sense,  yes.  Faith  is  always  trying  to 
convert  itself  into  knowledge  and  it  is  never 
so  happy  as  wrhen  it  gains  the  ground  of  ob- 
served fact  and  experience.  St.  Paul  admits 
that  "Now  we  see  through  a  glass,  darkly," 
but  looks  forward  to  the  time  when  we  shall 
see  "face  to  face."  In  another  sense,  how- 
ever, faith  is  a  larger,  a  grander  thing  than 
knowledge,  and  it  produces  incalculably 
greater  effects  in  the  world  and  in  the  soul. 
Coming  now  to  our  subject,  the  strangest, 
the  most  significant  fact  in  regard  to  man  is 
his  religion,  his  recognition  of  a  power  or 
powers  which  altogether  escape  his  senses.  It 
is  this  belief  that  has  inspired  his  greatest  dis- 
coveries, thoughts  and  creations;  that  has 


THE   THREE    MOTIVES    OF    FAITH 

united  humanity  as  nothing  else  unites  it; 
that  has  had  more  effect  on  human  conduct 
and  human  progress  than  all  his  other  knowl- 
edge and  beliefs  together.  Unquestionably, 
the  most  important,  persistent  fact  in  regard 
to  man  is  his  religion.  There  is  only  one 
similar  fact  that  we  can  point  to,  only  one  other 
persistent,  invariable,  incalculably  fruitful  be- 
lief in  an  unseen  reality,  and  therefore  only  one 
safe  point  of  departure, — that  is  our  belief 
in  the  invisible  soul,  our  faith  in  an  unseen 
spiritual  principle  in  man.  Our  own  soul  we 
know,  if** we  may  be  said  to  know  anything 
whatever,  but  it  is  the  only  soul  we  know 
in  all  the  universe.  I  need  not  remind  you 
how  two  persons  may  live  side  by  side  for 
years,  each  profoundly  ignorant  of  the  primary 
facts  of  the  other's  existence;  or  how  the  law 
may  put  forth  its  whole  force,  employ  its 
keenest  talents,  set  its  vast  machinery  in 
motion  in  the  vain  effort  to  wring  some  secret 
from  the  human  conscience.  The  soul  of 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

another  man  is  beyond  us.  It  is  a  world  we 
may  not  enter.  It  lies  before  us  in  its  baffling 
light  like  gold  buried  beneath  the  waves. 
We  are  disposed  toward  the  soul  as  we  are 
disposed  toward  God.  God  and  the  soul  be- 
long together;  he  who  believes  in  one  believes 
in  the  other,  and  he  who  denies  the  one  denies 
the  other;  and  they  belong  together  because 
they  are  at  bottom  one,  both  are  spiritual 
beings.  We  know  our  own  soul,  but  the  souls 
of  other  men  we  only  believe  in.  We  do  not 
see  them,  we  do  not  hear  them,  we  cannot 
touch  them.  What  we  see  and  hear  and  touch 
is  only  bodies,  and,  however  strong  the  analogy 
from  ourselves,  there  is  no  law  of  logic  that, 
from  the  movements  of  bodies,  from  vibra- 
tions in  the  air,  can  prove  souls. 

The  solution  of  our  problem,  then,  lies  in 
this  direction.  If  belief  in  the  little  soul  is 
valid  and  justified,  belief  in  the  Great  Soul 
is  also  valid  and  justified.  He  who  believes  in 

invisible  spirits  and  souls  all  around  him  and 

8 


THE   THREE    MOTIVES    OF   FAITH 

in  no  Great  Soul  above  him  is  superstitious, 
as  he  who  believes  in  thoughts  and  feelings 
but  in  no  mind  in  which  these  thoughts  exist 
is  superstitious.  It  is  necessary  to  believe 
more  or  not  so  much.  If  we  can  determine 
on  what  grounds  and  for  what  reasons  we 
believe  in  the  invisible,  intangible  souls  of 
other  men,  we  shall  find  that,  on  the  same 
grounds  and  for  the  same  reasons,  we  believe 
in  the  One  All-embracing  Spirit  of  God. 
Following  Fechner,  I  believe,  on  the  whole, 
that  other  men  have  souls  for  three  reasons, 
and  probably  there  is  not  a  fourth. 

First,  I  believe  in  the  soul  because  I  have 
been  taught  to  believe  it,  because  the  whole 
world  has  believed  it  before  me  and  still 
believes  it  all  around  me.  This  I  call  the 
Traditional  Motive. 

Secondly,  I  believe  that  other  men  have 
souls  because  it  is  good  and  useful  to  believe 
it  and  dangerous  to  doubt  it.  If  I  refused  to 
believe  it,  and,  acting  on  my  unbelief,  I  should 


THE   LIVING    WORD 

treat  other  persons  like  lay  figures  or  inanimate 
bodies,  I  should  cut  myself  off  from  all  human 
companionship,  from  every  avenue  of  spiritual 
life,  and  in  a  short  time  I  should  have  to  be 
sequestered  as  a  dangerous  lunatic.  This  is 
the  Practical  Motive. 

Thirdly,  I  believe  in  the  souls  of  other  men 
because  on  the  whole  it  is  reasonable  to  be- 
lieve it  and  unreasonable  to  doubt  it.  This 
is  the  Rational  Motive.  I  do  not  pretend 
that  belief  in  the  spirit  of  God  comes  to  us  with 
the  same  overwhelming  conviction  as  faith 
in  the  souls  of  our  fellow  men.  As  the  object 
of  our  faith  is  higher,  more  remote,  its  motives 
operate  less  overwhelmingly,  the  analogy  is 
less  close,  and  there  is  more  room  for  doubt, 
but  in  other  respects  nothing  is  changed.  Faith 
in  the  Infinite  Spirit  rests  on  the  same  ground 
as  faith  in  the  finite  spirit,  neither  of  which 
can  ever  present  itself  to  our  senses.  Here  we 
see  both  the  motive  of  faith  and  the  motive  of 

unbelief.     We  renounce  forever  the  attempt 

10 


THE   THREE    MOTIVES    OF    FAITH 

to  make  the  invisible  visible.  We  smile  at 
the  negations  of  those  who  deny  God  on  the 
ground  that  they  have  let  their  eyes  range  over 
the  visible  heavens  without  seeing  Him.  If 
God  is  here  at  all,  He  is  here  as  the  soul  is  in 
the  body. 

As  these  motives  are  independent  in  their 
origin  and  action,  and  as  one  appeals  more 
powerfully  to  one  man  or  to  one  race,  and 
another  appeals  to  another,  they  cannot  help 
coming  into  conflict.  From  this  opposition 
arise  the  so-called  warfare  of  religion  and 
science,  religious  wars,  controversies,  strifes 
without  end.  In  the  course  of  these  struggles, 
one  motive  or  the  other  seems  to  be  worsted, 
yet  it  quickly  recovers  and  resumes  its  ancient 
sway  over  the  minds  of  men,  and  out  of  these 
conflicts  arise  progress,  new  life,  the  religion 
of  the  future.  The  whole  body  and  substance 
of  human  faith  is  the  result  of  the  combination 
and  the  opposition  of  these  three  motives. 

There  is  and  remains  a  mighty  resultant  which 

11 


THE   LIVING   WORD 

is  kept  fresh  and  living  by  the  movement  and 
opposition  of  its  component  elements  just  as 
the  ocean  is  kept  fresh  and  living  by  the  action 
of  its  tides  and  currents.  The  abyss  of  human 
faith  may  be  compared  to  the  sea,  a  sea  that 
is  ever  restless,  ever  apparently  evaporating 
away,  yet  ever  refilling  itself.  From  it  all 
rivers  secretly  draw  their  life,  yet  only  to  pour 
themselves  again  into  its  bosom.  Here  and 
there,  an  atheist  arises  and  says  "There  is  no 
God,"  that  is,  with  the  little  dipper  of  his  un- 
belief he  attempts  to  empty  the  sea  of  faith 
which  has  existed  from  the  beginning  and  will 
continue  to  exist.  The  little  dipper  may  dip 
until  it  is  weary,  but  what  it  dips  out  runs 
through  the  air  and  the  earth  back  to  the 
sea. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  vain  to  at- 
tempt to  reduce  this  complex  of  belief  to  one 
of  its  constituent  motives.  He  who  believes 
ever  so  firmly  in  the  truth  of  his  religion  as  a 

direct  revelation  from  God  must  know  how  to 

12 


THE   THREE    MOTIVES    OF    FAITH 

extract  practical  good  from  his  faith  and  to 
prove  its  reasonableness  if  he  would  benefit 
by  it  himself  or  recommend  it  to  others.  He 
who  is  in  search  of  the  best  religion  of  all  and 
finds  it  in  the  religion  of  love  must  ask  himself 
whether  he  would  have  found  this  religion  if 
he  had  not  found  it  in  Christ.  He  who  would 
build  on  reason  and  experience  alone,  by 
observing  free  thinkers  and  materialists,  can 
easily  satisfy  himself  how  many  of  them  by 
this  principle  alone  have  found  faith  in  God 
and  in  eternal  life.  In  other  words,  the  action 
of  the  Historic  Motive  alone  leads  to  dead 
traditionalism,  the  action  of  the  Practical 
Motive  to  shallow  utilitarianism,  and  the  action 
of  the  Rational  Motive  to  weak  rationalism. 
I  call  him  a  poor  religious  teacher  who  wishes 
to  suspend  all  human  faith  from  one  of  these 
threads,  for  it  will  snap,  or  who  tries  to  make 
the  tree  grow  from  only  one  root  which  will 
not  nourish  it ;  and  I  call  him  a  wise  and  useful 

religious  teacher  who  helps  to  reconcile  these 

13 


/^OFTHE    " 

f  UNIVERSITY 
V  / 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

great  motives  of  faith  and  to  bind  them  more 
closely  together.  In  order  to  examine  these 
motives  separately,  I  am  obliged  to  unwind 
them,  but,  having  done  this,  I  shall  take  care 
to  twist  them  together  again. 


14 


Wenn  das  Erhabne  staunt  die  junge  Menschheit  an, 
Spricht  sie  im  hellen  Traum:   das  hat  der  Gott  gethan. 

Und  wenn  sie  zum  Gefiihl  des  Schonen  dann  erwacht, 
Bekennt  sie  freudig  stolz:  Es  hat's  der  Mensch  vollbracht. 

Und  wenn  zum  Wahren  einst  sie  reift,  wird  sie  erkennen, 
Es  thuts  im  Menschen  Gott,  der  nicht  von  ihm  zu  trennen. 

RUCKERT,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen.    Th.  I,  s.  9 


15 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   TRADITIONAL   MOTIVE    OF   FAITH 

THERE  can  be  no  doubt  that  to  the  great 
majority  of  men  religion  is  simply  inherited. 
However  we  may  work  at  our  religious  faith 
later  in  life,  criticise  it,  remodel  it,  we  must 
first  receive  it.  That  we  have  a  religious  life 
to-day  is  not  due  to  our  philosophers  and  men 
of  science,  many  of  whom  had  no  religion. 
It  is  due  to  the  fact  that  we  learned  to  believe 
as  children.  No  child  is  born  into  the  world 
with  faith  in  God  implanted  in  its  heart.  But 
the  child  is  born  with  a  strong  and  touching 
tendency  to  believe  what  it  is  told,  and  to 
retain  forever  its  early  impressions.  The  child 
does  not  have  to  learn  faith,  what  the  child 
learns  is  unbelief.  We  do  not  believe  at  first 

because   it   seems   to   us  good   to   believe   or 

17 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

reasonable  to  believe,  but  because  we  are 
taught  to  believe.  This  is  the  normal  and 
natural  beginning  of  a  religious  life,  and  hence 
Jesus  Christ  said,  "He  that  receive th  not  the 
Kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child  can  hardly 
enter  therein."  And  in  this  way  religion 
propagates  itself  from  age  to  age.  It  comes 
down  to  us  in  the  form  of  venerable  symbols 
and  traditional  revelations  and  inherited  be- 
liefs. If  you  tell  me  that  this  will  not  account 
for  the  way  religion  began,  I  must  own  you 
are  right,  but  what  will  account  for  it?  As 
far  as  we  can  penetrate  into  the  past,  we  find 
religion.  We  search  through  the  world  from 
China  to  Mexico  and  we  find  everywhere 
temples,  shrines,  sacred  mounds,  pyramids, 
dolmens,  which  bear  mute  witness  to  man's 
faith  in  the  unseen.  We  decipher  the  literature 
of  vanished  civilizations,  and  we  find  thattRey 
are  almost  wholly  concerned  with  the  same 
subjects,  God  and  the  soul.  Even  those  sav- 
ages of  the  Stone  Age  who  placed  beside  the 

18 


THE    TRADITIONAL    MOTIVE 

dead  warrior  his  weapon  and  bowl  of  food 
must  have  had  some  glimmering  of  faith  in  a 
life  beyond  the  grave.  But  if  this  does  not 
show  how  religion  originated,  it  does  show 
how  religion  propagates  itself.  Who  knows 
how  the  world  began  ?  Who  knows  what 
labor  it  cost  God  to  create  humanity,  or  how 
many  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  must 
have  elapsed  before  a  being  worthy  to  be  called 
man  appeared  upon  this  earth  ?  But  human 
life  once  created  propagates  itself  in  a  com- 
paratively simple  manner.  It  is  so  with  lan- 
guage. The  most  learned  academy  in  the 
world  could  not  create  a  new  language,  and 
yet  a  child  easily  learns  one  by  imitation.  I 
do  not  suppose  that  the  best  physician  in  the 
world  could  create  a  new  disease,  and  it  is 
hard  enough  to  cure  the  old  ones. 

So,  how  faith  in  God  arose  no  one  knows. 
We  may  have  our  theories  about  it,  but  they 
remain  theories.  But,  after  faith  is  created, 

it  propagates  itself  by  its  own  laws,  as  language, 

19 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

fire,  and  disease  propagate  themselves.  And, 
if  you  ask  a  man  who  possesses  a  religious 
life  why  he  believes,  no  matter  how  much  he 
may  have  thought  about  religion,  the  first,  the 
deepest,  the  most  important  reason  is, --he 
believes  because  other  people  believed  before 
him  and  taught  him  to  believe.  The  more 
men  remain  in  a  childlike,  uncritical  attitude 
of  mind,  the  more  power  this  traditional  mo- 
tive has  over  them  to  the  exclusion  of  all  other 
motives.  The  same  is  true  of  churches.  But, 
if  you  think  that  faith  founded  on  this  rock 
is  weaker  and  less  able  to  influence  life  than 
enlightened  faith,  I  must  tell  you  that  you  are 
mistaken.  Though  not  the  highest  form  of 
faith,  it  is  apt  to  be  the  strongest,  the  most 
obstinate,  the  least  disposed  to  change. 
Fanatics  and  martyrs  have  almost  all  been 
men  of  childlike  minds.  Very  few  highly 
educated  men  have  ever  let  themselves  be 
martyred.  "I  have  no  vocation  for  martyr- 
dom," said  Erasmus. 

20 


THE   TRADITIONAL    MOTIVE 

If  religion  had  to  recreate  itself  through  the 
action  of  the  Practical  Motive  and  the  Rational 
Motive  in  individual  minds,  how  weak  and 
intermittent  a  thing  it  would  be.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  does  not  depend  much  upon  these 
motives  for  its  transmission.  That  takes 
place  automatically  through  the  action  of  the 
Traditional  Motive,  which  acts  exactly  like 
the  law  of  heredity  in  plants  and  animals;  it 
transmits  existing  types.  It  is  the  Traditional 
Motive  which  acts  everywhere  and  at  all  times, 
on  a  large  scale  preserving  the  achievements 
and  beliefs  of  the  past,  so  that  out  of  it  grow 
the  present  and  the  future.  Without  this 
Motive  no  religion  can  long  exist.  Even  those 
so-called  liberal  churches  which  have  most 
emancipated  themselves  from  the  Traditional 
Motive  are  examples  of  its  powers.  Abandon- 
ing the  authority  of  tradition,  they  have  nothing 
to  teach  authoritatively  to  children,  who  learn 
religion  in  no  other  way.  As  a  consequence, 

those  churches  are  largely  forsaken  by  their 

21 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

children.  They  are  unable  to  hold  their  young 
people,  in  consequence  of  which  in  a  given 
time  they  will  cease  to  exist. 

Jesus  expressed  his  position  perfectly  when 
after  the  magnificent  cycle  of  parables  recorded 
by  St.  Matthew  He  turned  to  His  disciples 
and  asked,  "Have  ye  understood  all  these 
things?"  They  say  unto  Him,  "Yea,  Lord." 
Then  said  He  unto  them,  "Therefore,  every 
scribe  which  is  instructed  unto  the  Kingdom 
of  Heaven  is  like  unto  a  man  that  is  a  house- 
holder that  bringeth  forth  out  of  his  treasure 
things  new  and  old."  (St.  Matt.  13:  51,52.) 
For  years  Christianity  was  scarcely  more  than 
a  sect  of  the  Jewish  Church.  Those  years  of 
intense  internal  and,  as  it  were,  chemical 
activity  were  necessary  to  assimilate  the  new 
to  the  old.  If  even  Jesus  had  come  forward 
with  an  absolutely  new  Gospel  He  would  have 
found  no  point  upon  this  earth  at  which  he 
could  attach  that  Gospel  to  the  hearts  of  men. 
He  might  not  have  gained  one  follower.  That 


THE    TRADITIONAL    MOTIVE 

is  proved  by  the  fact  that  Jesus'  personal 
disciples,  Judas  only  excepted,  remained  pious 
Jews  to  the  day  of  their  death,  for  the  most 
part  like  other  pious  Jews,  with  one  difference 
—they  believed  that  the  Messiah  had  come. 
But  you  say,  how  about  the  citizens  of 
the  great  pagan  world  ?  To  them,  at  least, 
Christianity  came  as  an  absolutely  new  thing, 
and  yet  they  believed.  Did  it  so  come  ?  On 
Mars  Hill  in  Athens,  Christianity  first  came 
in  contact  with  the  intellect  of  Greece;  and 
the  one  thing  St.  Paul,  in  the  most  inspired 
sermon  of  his  life,  tries  to  show  these  philo- 
sophical Athenians  is  that  Christianity  is  not 
a  new  thing,  but  an  old  thing.  He  tells  them 
that  in  his  eyes  they  are  already  very  religious. 
He  assures  them  that  the  God  whom  Socrates, 
Plato,  and  Zeno  the  Stoic,  had  sought  and  found, 
the  God  whose  children  they  already  are, 
is  the  God  he  is  come  to  declare  to  them. 
He,  St.  Paul,  standing  in  this  citadel  of  skep- 
ticism, comes  not  to  destroy  anything  that  is 

23 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

able  to  stand  and  minister  to  the  spiritual  life 
of  men.  And  yet  it  is  not  all  old.  Otherwise 
St.  Paul's  sermon  would  be  but  a  little  resume 
of  the  history  of  philosophy  which  would  not 
have  been  remembered  five  days.  The  new 
comes  in  due  time,  Jesus  and  the  Resurrection. 
And  yet  the  new  is  not  altogether  new.  It  is 
a  new  revelation  of  the  old  God. 

Consider  for  a  moment  the  attitude  of 
Christianity  to  the  Roman  world.  The  Roman 
religion,  be  it  remembered,  was  not  a  spiritual 
religion,  it  was  not  a  philosophical  or  teaching 
religion.  It  was  incredibly  hollow  and  ex- 
ternal, and  the  Romans  themselves  were  so 
tired  of  it  that  they  were  ready  to  exchange  it 
for  almost  any  religion  that  could  speak  to  their 
souls  in  the  name  of  God.  It  was  an  affair  of 
temples  and  material  sacrifices,  of  shows  and 
processions,  of  festivals  spread  over  the  wrhole 
year,  in  honor  of  innumerable  deities.  But 
it  was  a  wonderfully  organized  religion,  simply 

because   it  was   the   religion    of  the  greatest 

24 


THE    TRADITIONAL    MOTIVE 

organizing  people  that  the  world  has  ever 
seen.  It  is  interesting  to  see  how  many  con- 
cessions Christianity  was  obliged  to  make  to 
Rome,  and  how  many  of  the  old  Roman 
customs  Christianity  accepted  bodily.  To 
read  the  writings  of  those  who  are  learned  in 
these  matters,  one  would  suppose  that  Chris- 
tianity had  invented  hardly  anything.  The 
Romans  in  accepting  the  new  religion  insisted 
on  carrying  with  them  much  of  their  old 
paganism,  even  to  such  an  extent  as  seriously 
to  compromise  the  Church's  original  mono- 
theistic idea.  For  the  gods  and  goddesses 
she  took  away,  the  Church  gave  back  saints, 
to  whom  prayer  continued  to  be  offered. 
Gradually,  the  "Church  Year"  was  formed, 
in  which  the  most  important  events  were 
celebrated  on  the  great  Roman  festivals. 
Christmas  took  the  place  of  the  Roman 
Saturnalia,  and  we  give  Christmas  presents 
primarily  because  the  Romans  gave  gifts  on 

the  Feast  of  Saturn.     So  the  transition  was 

25 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

made  as  easy  for  them  as  possible,  and  all 
that  could  be  adopted  by  the  Church  was 
adopted.  The  great  temples  of  the  gods  with 
a  few  alterations  became  Christian  churches. 
The  sacraments  became  more  material,  and 
acquired  an  importance  at  Rome  they  did  not 
possess  elsewhere.  A  graduated  priesthood 
was  formed.  Nuns  took  the  place  of  Vestal 
Virgins;  and,  in  particular,  the  Roman  con- 
ception of  a  single  co-ordinated  universal 
empire  became  the  Church's  highest  ideal. 
The  superb  organization  of  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  owes  its  inception  to  the 
genius  of  Julius  Caesar  and  to  the  great 
lawyers  who  planned  the  Roman  Empire. 
The  Emperor,  Pontifex  Maximus,  became 
the  Pope.  The  legates  and  proconsuls,  papal 
ambassadors  and  nuncios;  the  governors 
of  provinces,  bishops  and  archbishops;  the 
college  of  the  senate  became  the  college  of 
cardinals,  etc.,  etc.  In  short,  Christianity 

presented    itself    to    the    Roman    Empire  as 

26 


THE   TRADITIONAL   MOTIVE 

little  as  possible  a  new  thing,  and  as 
much  as  possible  an  old  thing  to  which 
the  Romans  were  well  accustomed.  The 
Church  was  compelled  to  make  many  con- 
cessions and  to  depart  considerably  from  its 
own  original  plan;  and  yet  who  can  say  that 
those  concessions  were  not  absolutely  necessary 
to  attach  the  heart  of  the  great  pagan  world 
to  Christ? 

Religions  are  not  originated,  they  are  not 
invented.  They  are  transmitted.  In  this 
respect  religion  is  exactly  like  language.  No 
man  can  originate  a  new  language.  A  man  if 
he  has  the  genius  may  infinitely  develop  the 
resources  of  an  old  language  and  leave  it  — 
as  Luther  left  his  native  tongue  —  an  entirely 
different  thing  from  the  thing  he  found.  But 
to  do  so  he  must  first  speak  the  language  him- 
self. The  reason  of  this  is,  religion  and  lan- 
guage are  living  things.  (Religion  is  man's 
relation  with  God.)  In  this  they  are  entirely 

different   from   philosophy;    and   they   prove 

27 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

that  they  are  alive  by  living,  while  phi- 
losophies die.  As  long  as  they  remain  liv- 
ing, they  are  capable  of  infinite  growth  and 
improvement,  but  always  in  a  purely  natural 
way.  The  new  always  grows  from  the  old, 
and  because  religion  is  alive  it  is  attached  to 
the  soil.  It  comes  down  to  us  through  the 
ages  without  a  break  or  a  gap.  It  is  our 
inheritance  from  the  past.  It  is  the  oldest 
thing  in  existence  on  the  earth  except  lan- 
guage. And  because  it  has  lasted  so  long 
it  is  likely  to  last  longer.  If  language,  the 
thing  most  like  religion,  is  not  likely  to  dis- 
appear, religion  is  not  likely  to  disappear. 
But  neither  can  it  be  created  anew.  If  there 
is  one  thing,  as  Paulsen  says,  that  gives  a  man 
of  culture  and  education  a  sense  of  world- 
weariness  and  that  chills  him  to  the  bone,  it  is 
to  see  men  and  women  attempting  consciously 
to  found  a  new  religion.  They  can  unite  into 
talking  societies,  they  can  meet  for  ethical 

culture,  they  can  repeat  the  commonplaces  of 

28 


THE   TRADITIONAL    MOTIVE 

science,  they  can  entertain  themselves  with 
the  phenomena  of  morbid  psychology;  but 
to  create  a  religion  that  links  the  past  to  the 
present,  and  that  spans  the  future,  to  invent 
symbols  and  sacraments  that  inspire  faith  and 
unite  the  soul  to  God,  they  can  no  more  do  than 
they  can  invent  a  tree. 

As  Religion  comes  to  the  world  it  comes  to 
us.  It  is  transmitted.  We  learn  it  as  we  learn 
to  speak,  from  our  parents,  in  school,  through 
all  those  channels  that  make  our  earthly  en- 
vironment. The  religion  that  thus  comes  down 
to  us  is  the  old  religion  that  comes  to  us  as  it 
comes  in  some  way  to  all,  in  the  form  of  solemn 
symbols  and  venerable  ideas  in  regard  to  God 
and  Christ,  and  the  beginning  and  end  of  the 
world,  resurrection,  judgment,  and  heaven 
and  hell.  This  is  the  natural  way  for  religion 
to  come.  Then  the  world  claims  us  and  the 
Heaven  of  our  childhood  vanishes,  and  we 
learn  to  think  and  to  doubt,  and  the  religion 
we  learned  as  children  grows  more  difficult 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

to  believe  and  influences  us  less  and  less. 
But  then  life  itself  .begins  to  speak  to  us  of 
God.  We  see  our  parents  die,  and  the  young 
life  begins  to  grow  up  around  our  feet; 
or  God  confronts  us  in  some  way,  in  joy, 
or  sorrow,  or  opportunity,  and  the  whole 
vast  problem  of  life  and  death,  our  life  and 
death,  presses  on  us  for  an  answer.  So  our 
religious  life  begins  anew,  only  now  it  is  a  per- 
sonal question  which  another  cannot  answer 
for  us,  but  which  we  must  answer  for  ourselves. 
The  great  symbols,  the  great  revelations  of  the 
past,  the  beliefs  of  the  whole  human  race,  come 
back  to  us;  but  now  we  must  wrestle  with 
those  symbols,  with  those  inherited  beliefs  of 
the  ages,  until  we  have  made  them  in  some 
new  way  our  own.  So  in  us,  old  and  new 
mingle.  Both  are  necessary.  The  man  whose 
religion  is  simply  that  which  he  learned  as  a 
child;  the  man  who  simply  prays  the  old 
prayers  he  learned  at  his  mother's  knee,  to 

whom  God  is  no  nearer,  no  more  wonderful 

30 


THE    TRADITIONAL   MOTIVE 

than  of  yore,  who  reads  the  Bible  with  no 
deeper  insight  of  everlasting  truth,  is  just  as 
if  his  mental  development  in  any  other  direc- 
tion had  been  arrested  in  childhood.  But 
on  the  other  hand,  hard,  hard  is  it  for  the  man 
to  whom  religion  has  not  come  in  the  old  sweet, 
natural  way  of  transmission,  to  acquire  it  in 
later  years,  —  so  hard  that  few  men  do  it. 

But,  you  say,  what  an  argument  this  is  after 
all!  What  kind  of  faith  is  it  that  propagates 
itself  blindly  in  this  way,  as  fire,  language, 
and  disease  propagate  themselves,  that  is 
accepted  most  easily  by  children  and  childish 
persons,  and  is  handed  on  from  age  to  age, 
even  by  those  who  do  not  believe  it  ?  Are  not 
all  human  legends  and  errors  propagated  in 
the  same  way  ?  It  is  very  true,  the  Traditional 
Motive  in  itself  is  not  strong  enough  to  hold 
the  better  portion  of  humanity  indefinitely. 
The  child  becomes  a  man,  and  a  man  demands 
a  reason  for  the  faith  that  is  proposed  to  him. 

Error  at  last  reaches  a  point  in  its  develop- 

31 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

ment  beyond  which  it  cannot  go.  But  still 
the  effect  of  early  education,  the  power  of 
tradition,  never  wholly  loses  its  influence  over 
us;  and,  moreover,  along  with  error,  the 
noblest  truths,  the  great  revelations  of  the 
past,  on  wrhich  generations  of  men  have  leaned 
for  their  support,  have  thus  come  down  to  us. 
The  faith  you  surrender  last  is  generally  the 
faith  you  learned  first.  Where  three  motives 
are  indispensable,  it  is  hard  to  say  that  one  is 
greater  or  more  important  than  another.  But 
certainly,  of  these  three  motives,  the  Tradi- 
tional is  not  the  least  important.  It  comes 
down  to  us  hoary  with  time.  It  is  the  con- 
crete expression  of  the  faith  of  millions  of 
human  beings  who  have  traversed  this  earth 
before  us.  Because  it  is  so  old,  so  holy,  and  so 
venerable,  it  speaks  with  an  authority  which 
our  private  musings  and  speculations  cannot 
attain.  Yet  I  agree  with  all  who  say  that  the 
Traditional  Motive  alone  is  not  strong  enough 

to  hold  the  better  part  of  mankind  forever, 

32 


THE   TRADITIONAL   MOTIVE 

and  I  therefore  pass  on  to  the  other  two 
motives,  remarking  first  that  in  Christendom 
the  champion  of  the  Traditional  Motive  is  the 
Catholic  Church,  Eastern  and  Western,  and 
in  the  Anglican  Church  its  champion  is  the 
so-called  Catholic  party.  The  present  distri- 
bution of  Christian  churches  can  be  under- 
stood only  in  the  light  of  its  history.  The 
differences  which  divide  and  cripple  us  are 
dictated  neither  by  reason  nor  by  utility.  They 
are  due  to  the  operation  of  the  Traditional 
Motive  which  transmits  existing  types  long 
after  their  reason  for  existing  has  disappeared. 


33 


Der  Vater  mit  dem  Sohn  ist  liber  Feld  gegangen: 

Sie  konnen  nachtverirrt  die  Heimat  nicht  erlangen. 
Nach  jedem  Felsen  blickt  der  Sohn,  nach  jedem  Baum, 

Wegweiser  ihm  zu  sein  im  weglos  dunklen  Raum. 
Der  Vater  aber  blickt  indessen  nach  den  Sternen, 

Als  ob  der  Erde  Weg  er  woll'  am  Himmel  lernen. 
Die  Felsen  blieben  stumm,  die  Baume  sagten  nichts, 

Die  Sterne  deuteten  mit  einem  Streifen  Lichts. 
Zur  Heimat  deuten  sie;  wohl  dem,  der  traut  den  Sternen! 

Den  Weg  der  Erde  kann  man  nur  am  Himmel  lernen. 

RUCKERT,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  I,  s.  29. 


35 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   PRACTICAL   MOTIVE    OF   FAITH 

THE  Practical  Motive  of  Faith  is  stated 
thus :  I  believe  because  it  is  good  and  useful  to 
believe  and  dangerous  to  doubt.1  We  can  see 
the  truth  of  this,  at  all  events,  in  regard  to  the 
souls  of  our  fellow  men.  Were  I  to  conceive 
the  idea  that  other  men  and  women  have  no 
souls,  and  were  I  to  treat  them  as  senseless 
automata,  I  should  cut  myself  off  from  most  of 
the  happiness  of  this  life.  I  could  not  indeed 
cut  myself  off  altogether  from  my  fellow  men. 
They  would  still  pity  me  and  help  me  in  my 

1 1  call  attention  to  the  bearing  of  this  discussion  on  the  theory 
of  Pragmatism.  As  I  am  unwilling  to  be  diverted  from  my 
exposition  of  Fechner,  I  shall  not  pursue  this  interesting  compari- 
son. The  superiority  of  Fechner's  argument  seems  to  me  to  lie  in 
the  fact  that  he  assigns  only  a  relative,  not  an  absolute,  worth  to 
the  practical  value  of  belief. 

37 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

blindness,  but  the  best  they  could  bestow  on 
me  I  should  lose.  So,  should  I  doubt  or  deny 
the  existence  of  God,  I  could  not  cut  myself 
off  altogether  from  God.  God  would  still 
bless  and  help  me  in  many  ways,  but  the  best 
God  has  for  me,  love  and  joy  in  His  pres- 
ence, peace  and  communion  with  Him,  I 
should  lose. 

The  discussion  of  this  motive  is  peculiarly 
interesting  because  of  the  fact  that  it  was 
once  examined  by  as  acute  and  disinterested 
a  man  as  John  Stuart  Mill,  who  indignantly 
rejected  it  as  a  worthy  incentive  to  religious 
belief.  You  remember  that,  in  his  famous 
Essay  on  The  Utility  of  Religion,  Mill 
described  the  appeal  to  the  utility  of  religion 
as  an  appeal  to  unbelievers  to  practise  a  well- 
meant  hypocrisy;  and,  further,  he  says,  "The 
value  of  religion  as  a  supplement  to  human 
laws,  a  more  cunning  sort  of  police,  an  aux- 
iliary to  the  thief -catcher  and  the  hangman, 

is  not  that  part  of  its  claims  on  which  the  more 

38 


THE    PRACTICAL    MOTIVE 

high-minded  of  its  votaries  are  fondest  of 
insisting."  I  quite  agree  with  Mill  as  to  this, 
but  at  the  same  time,  in  these  words  he 
grossly  misrepresents  the  kind  of  good  that 
is  done  by  religion.  His  difficulty  is  this: 
he  sees  the  incalculable  good  Christianity 
has  done  and  is  doing  in  the  world  and 
he  is  too  honest  to  deny  it;  but  he  is  already 
convinced  that  Christianity  as  a  religion  is 
false  and  that  in  Christianity  truth  and  good- 
ness are  arrayed  against  each  other.  Hence 
his  taunt  about  well-meant  hypocrisy;  hence 
he  specifically  says  that,  of  all  struggles,  that 
between  truth  and  goodness  is  the  saddest, 
and  that  the  man  who  is  placed  in  this  de- 
plorable situation  will  end  by  becoming  in- 
different to  one  or  both  of  the  most  sacred 
interests  of  humanity.  I  believe,  however, 
that  Christianity  as  a  religion  is  true,  and  I 
believe  in  Christianity  primarily  because  I 
think  it  is  true  and  not  because  I  think  it  is 

useful.    At  the  same  time,  the  enormous  good 

39 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

Christianity  has  done  the  world  and  can  do 
our  souls  is  no  presumption  against  its  truth 
unless  we  are  so  absurd  as  to  say  that  what  is 
true  cannot  be  useful.  How  about  science? 
The  plain  fact  is  that,  if  a  thing  is  true,  it 
cannot  help  being  useful  in  the  long  run ;  hence 
utility  is  a  presumption  in  favor  of  truth  rather 
than  the  contrary. 

I  therefore  consider  that  the  good  religion 
has  done  the  world,  primarily  the  moral, 
social,  spiritual  good  it  has  done,  is  a  legiti- 
mate motive  for  believing  in  it.  And  the  greater 
the  good  any  particular  religion  has  done  in 
ameliorating  and  elevating  the  life  of  man, 
the  stronger  the  claim  of  that  religion.  Whether 
we  like  to  admit  it  or  not,  that  is  the  truth. 
Who  would  be  likely  to  embrace  a  religion 
that  promised  to  do  him  nothing  but  harm  ? 
The  spread  of  Buddhism  and  of  Islam  forms 
no  real  exception  to  this  rule.  Each  was  a 
marked  improvement  on  its  predecessors.  The 

Practical  Motive  unquestionably  forms  one  of 

40 


THE   PRACTICAL   MOTIVE 

the  greatest  roots  of  all  human  belief.  Its 
strength  is  that  it  is  irrefutable.  Where  no 
argument  is  advanced,  no  refutation  can  be 
offered.  The  fact  is  this:  Man  believes  what 
he  likes  to  believe.  He  believes  willingly  what 
makes  him  happy,  and  he  closes  his  eyes  as 
long  as  possible  to  that  which  disturbs  his 
peace.  We  are  never  at  a  loss  to  find  reasons 
for  what  we  wish  to  believe.  It  is  because  man 
needs  God,  because  he  cannot  be  happy  with- 
out God,  that  he  believes  in  God.  If  it  were 
not  for  this  need,  the  creature's  radical  love 
for  his  Creator,  all  the  arguments  in  the  world 
would  not  induce  men  to  make  the  sacrifices 
they  have  made  for  their  religion.  In  dying 
for  their  faith,  they  have  renounced  the  less 
that  they  might  keep  the  greater.  If  belief 
in  an  invisible  God  were  of  no  use  to  us,  is  it 
probable  that  it  would  have  persisted  so  long  ? 
There  are  thousands  of  other  things  believed 
in  the  world,  to  many  men  more  certain  than 

the  existence  of  God.     Why  is  it  that  we  are 

41 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

so  indifferent  to  them,  that  we  will  not  take 
the  trouble  to  learn  whether  they  are  true  or 
false?  Because  we  feel  that,  even  if  true, 
they  are  of  no  importance  to  us. 

As  it  is,  we  see  this  strange  fact.  In  the 
face  of  the  imperfection,  the  cruelty,  the  in- 
justice of  Nature  and  the  world,  men  every- 
where affirm  that  the  God  who  made  it  is 
all-good,  all-wise,  all-merciful,  because  man's 
moral  nature  cries  out  for  such  a  God  and  can- 
not be  satisfied  with  any  other.  It  is  true, 
philosophers,  men  who  think  rather  than  live, 
care  little  for  this  argument.  They  ignore 
the  needs  of  the  people  and  the  God  of  Chris- 
tianity. If  they  give  us  a  God  at  all,  it  is  an 
abstract  God,  a  mere  idea,  the  Absolute, 
Unending  Substance,  the  Unconscious,  the 
World  Order,  the  Unknowable.  Such  a  God, 
by  whatever  train  of  thought  He  is  reached, 
will  never  supplant  the  living  God  of  the 
Bible  because  there  is  no  use  in  believing  in 

Him.     If  you  believe  in  such  an  idea,  it  does 

42 


THE   PRACTICAL    MOTIVE 

not  make  you  better,  and,  if  you  doubt  and 
deny  it,  you  can  hardly  be  the  worse.  No 
one  who  has  received  into  his  heart  the  God 
of  Jesus  Christ  can  be  forsaken  by  that  pres- 
ence without  moral  loss. 

It  is  the  same  with  respect  to  another  life. 
Prove  to  men  as  much  as  you  please  that  there 
is  no  soul,  no  life  without  a  brain,  and  the 
great  majority  of  them  will  not  believe  you. 
They  had  rather  trust  their  own  dark  intui- 
tions than  your  fine  reasoning.  Man  requires 
another  life  to  strengthen  him  for  this  life, 
to  give  him  a  motive  for  living  at  all.  There- 
fore he  believes  in  another  life.  Everyone 
believes  in  a  Heaven  filled  with  what  he  most 
desires,  and  in  a  Hell  peopled  with  what  he 
most  fears.  When  the  Moravians  began  their 
mission  in  Greenland,  they  were  amazed  to 
discover  that  the  highest  ambition  of  the 
Eskimos  was  to  go  to  Hell.  They  had  made 
the  great  mistake  of  telling  their  converts 

that  Hell  is  a  warm  place.    We  smile  at  this, 

43 


OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

yet  Plato  looked  forward  to  the  contemplation 
of  eternal  truth  as  his  Heaven.  It  has  often 
been  remarked  that  man  believes  in  God  most 
when  he  needs  God  most,  and  that  the  very 
trials  and  sorrows  and  inexplicable  misfor- 
tunes of  life  which  would  seem  most  likely  to 
destroy  our  faith,  commonly  destroy  our  un- 
belief and  make  our  faith  perfect;  and,  on  the 
other  hand,  persons  who  feel  no  need  of  God 
or  of  immortality  seldom  believe  in  either,  and 
they  are  equally  sure  that  such  a  belief  is 
valueless  to  the  rest  of  mankind. 

To  all  this  I  am  aware  that  two  objections 
can  well  be  made. 

1.  Is  religion,  after  all,  so  necessary  to  man  ? 
People  think  it  is  because  they  have  been  taught 
so.  Priests,  from  obviously  interested  motives, 
insist  that  it  is.  All  great  human  institutions 
have  come  down  to  us  saturated  with  religion. 
Our  education,  our  social  relationships,  our 
moral  life  are  so  intertwined  with  religion  that 

we  are  apt  to  think  that  without  faith  in  its 

44 


THE    PRACTICAL    MOTIVE 

sanctions  our  higher  life  would  cease.  But 
is  this  true  ?  Is  it  not  the  effect  of  the  faith  of 
past  ages,  an  application  of  that  Traditional 
Motive  which,  as  I  have  already  confessed, 
comes  down  to  us  heavy  with  evil  and  error? 
On  account  of  its  magnitude  and  com- 
plexity, this  is  not  an  easy  question  to  answer. 
When,  however,  through  the  ages  two  things 
appear  and  disappear  together  with  tolerably 
constant  regularity,  we  soon  suspect  that  they 
stand  in  a  causal  relation.  It  has  been  thus 
with  religion  and  the  higher  life  of  man.  They 
have  appeared  and  disappeared  together. 
Every  great  outburst  of  faith  has  been  at- 
tended, as  Goethe  says,  by  a  great  stride  in 
human  progress.  Every  period  of  skepticism 
has  been  a  harbinger  of  moral  and  social 
decay.  The  old  world  went  out  in  Pilate's 
hopeless  skepticism  expressed  by  his  famous 
question,  "What  is  truth?"  The  new  world 
began  in  unbounded  faith  in  the  affirmation 

of  Jesus:    "I  am  the  way,  the  truth  and  the 

45  " 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

life."  So  it  has  been  with  other  races.  Mo- 
hammed opened  the  door  of  a  new  life  and 
of  age-long  progress  to  his  people,  Buddha 
recreated  Asia,  Confucius  was  the  soul  of 
China,  and  all  these  gave  a  new  existence 
to  their  people  by  faith.  I  will  not  point  to  the 
innumerable  abortive  attempts  of  unbelievers 
to  found  little  societies  and  associations  fore- 
doomed to  failure,  of  which  the  heathen 
Plutarch  said,  "You  can  more  easily  found  a 
city  without  a  wall  than  found  one  without 
religion."  Let  me,  however,  call  your  atten- 
tion to  a  really  notable  instance  in  human 
affairs.  In  the  year  1793  the  Christian 
religion  was  officially  denied  in  Paris.  The 
venerable  Cathedral  of  Notre  Dame  became 
the  scene  of  sacrilegious  insult  unknown  in  the 
history  of  our  religion.  Many  of  the  French 
churches  were  converted  into  theaters,  dance- 
halls,  drinking  saloons.  It  was  forbidden  to 
date  events  from  the  birth  of  Jesus  Christ. 

France  had  at  last  apparently   broken  with 

46 


THE    PRACTICAL    MOTIVE 

the  Christian  religion  forever.  Sunday  and 
the  week  itself  were  abolished.  Over  the  gate 
of  the  cemetery,  the  chief  of  police  wrote: 
"Death  is  an  eternal  sleep."  And  yet  within 
six  months,  in  the  darkest  days  of  the  Terror, 
Robespierre,  of  all  men  in  the  world,  uttered 
these  strange  words  to  his  colleagues  in  Con- 
vention: "What  could  have  induced  you  to 
tell  the  people  that  there  is  no  God  ?  Why 
does  it  seem  good  to  you  to  prate  to  men 
that  blind  fate  governs  their  destiny?  Does 
the  thought  of  annihilation  bring  to  man 
purer  and  better  feelings  than  the  thought  of 
his  immortality?  .  .  .  And  why  should  not 
the  ideas  of  religion  be  true  ?  I,  for  my  part, 
cannot  understand  how  nature  can  fabricate 
falsehoods  more  useful  to  men  than  all  truths. 
The  thought  of  a  Supreme  Being  and  of  ever- 
lasting life  is  an  eternal  provocation  to  right- 
eousness .  .  .  And  what  have  you  to  give 
in  the  place  of  the  God  you  have  thrown  out 

of  your  churches  ?     What  have  you  to  put  in 

47 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

His  place  but  chaos,  nothingness,  and  death  P"1 
If  it  were  possible  to  find  a  satisfactory  sub- 
stitute for  religion,  men  like  Napoleon  Bona- 
parte and  Robespierre  would  have  preferred 
any  substitute  for  religious  faith.  But  the 
crassest  Absolutist  and  the  most  radical 
Republican  both  found  faith  necessary  to 
maintain  order  in  the  State,  and  Voltaire, 
who  was  not  without  worldly  experience, 
declared  that  he  would  rather  live  in  a  world 
governed  by  devils  than  in  a  world  governed 
by  atheists.  Religion,  therefore,  cannot  be 
regarded  as  an  illusion  of  the  human  mind 
or  as  a  temporary  phase  of  human  culture, 
through  which  men  and  nations  pass  and 
then  are  done  with  it  forever.  Were  this  true 
the  downfall  of  religion  would  be  the  har- 
binger of  new  and  higher  life.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  in  the  history  of  the  nations  it  has 
been  the  harbinger  of  spiritual  night  and 
death. 

'  Becker's  Weltgeschichte,  XII,  s.  321. 
48 


THE   PRACTICAL   MOTIVE 

2.  The  second  objection  is  much  more 
serious.  Most  intelligent  persons  recognize 
the  great  good  religion  has  done,  and  they  also 
recognize  the  great  harm  it  has  done.  They 
remember  the  seas  of  blood  Catholicism  has 
shed,  they  have  not  forgotten  the  long  tyranny 
of  the  Church,  its  bitter  hostility  to  truth. 
They  remind  us  of  the  savage  and  frightful 
wars  which  have  been  wraged  in  the  name 
of  religion.  When  the  Crusaders  captured 
Jerusalem,  one  hundred  thousand  Moslems 
are  said  to  have  been  put  to  the  sword.  "  They 
spared  neither  sex  nor  age,"  as  Gibbon 
says,  "  until  they  had  killed  all  who  denied 
the  Saviour  of  the  world,  the  Prince  of  Peace." 
Who  knows  how  many  thousands  were  tortured 
to  death  in  the  Inquisition?  It  is  estimated 
that  the  Thirty  Years'  War  cost  Germany 
nearly  three  fourths  of  her  population.  The 
truth  of  this  indictment,  the  most  serious 
on  which  our  religion  can  be  arraigned,  the 

wickedness  of  its  own  past,  cannot  be  denied. 

49 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

Those  atrocious  acts,  that  persecution  of  truth, 
those  fearful  crimes  against  God  and  man, 
must  ever  remain  the  darkest  stains  upon  the 
Christian  religion,  and  to-day  they  constitute 
the  most  valid  objection  in  the  minds  of 
educated  men  to  enrolling  themselves  under 
Christ's  banner.  Heavy  indeed  must  be  the 
good  deeds  that  outweigh  such  a  multitude 
of  crimes.  But  though  these  deeds  were  per- 
formed in  the  name  of  the  Christian  religion, 
can  any  one  pretend  that  they  were  done  in 
its  spirit  ?  Will  any  one  say  that  Jesus  looked 
with  approbation  on  the  Inquisition  or  the 
Massacre  of  St.  Bartholomew's  ?  All  the 
evils  that  were  wrought  by  Christianity  were 
wrought  in  defiance  of  its  real  principles.  All 
harmful  elements  in  any  religion  arise  from 
what  is  false  in  that  religion.  Here  we  can 
see  deeply  into  the  motive  of  faith  I  am  dis- 
cussing, namely  -  -  that  the  practical  value 
of  a  religion  is  generally  accepted  as  a  real 

value.     Other   conquering  religions,   notably 

50 


THE    PRACTICAL    MOTIVE 

Islam,  have  also  a  heavy  list  of  sanguinary 
crimes  to  answer  for.  But  in  the  case  of  Islam 
the  statement  I  have  just  made  as  to  Chris- 
tianity does  not  hold.  On  the  contrary,  the 
fanaticism,  the  indifference  to  the  shedding  of 
human  blood,  is  part  of  the  spirit  and  genius 
of  the  religion  itself  and  may  be  traced  to  its 
founder.  If  unfettered,  to-day  Islam  would 
be  just  as  great  a  menace  to  the  peace  and 
freedom  of  the  world  as  ever.  No  self -im- 
provement or  self-purification  from  a  study 
of  its  own  sacred  books  and  a  return  to  its  own 
sources  can  be  looked  for  in  Islam,  and  that 
one  fact  fixes  its  value  as  a  religion,  as  an  in- 
strument of  enlightenment  and  progress.  Yet 
I  do  not  hesitate  to  say  that  no  matter  how 
false  and  foolish  a  people's  faith  may  be  it  is 
always  better  than  no  faith.  You  may  say  that 
without  religion  such  horrors  as  the  capture 
of  Jerusalem,  the  Inquisition  and  the  Thirty 
Years'  War  would  not  take  place.  That  is 

very  true.     Without  religion,  an  ideal  could 

51 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

not  convert  the  world  into  a  battle-field ;  men 
would  not  fight  for  such  ideals  as  the  posses- 
sion of  an  empty  sepulcher,  or  for  liberty  of 
thought.  They  would  fight  as  our  ancestors 
fought,  for  lust,  for  conquest,  for  the  ex- 
quisite pleasure  of  shedding  blood.  Wars 
wrould  not  last  thirty  years.  They  would 
be  perpetual,  like  the  wars  of  Rome  and 
Assyria.  They  would  never  come  to  an  end 
till  the  weaker  party  were  reduced  to  slavery. 
Therefore  the  way  to  guard  against  such 
atrocities  is  not  to  destroy  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, but  to  purify  it  and  to  follow  its  counsels 
of  boundless  love  and  forgiveness.  The  self- 
inflicted  tortures  and  the  absurdities  incul- 
cated by  many  religions  have  unquestionably 
wrought  great  harm.  But  just  on  this  account 
these  religions  cannot  endure,  but  must  yield 
to  the  religion  of  reason  and  of  love. 

Although  this  Practical  Motive  is  complete 
and  sufficient  in  itself,  yet  a  strong  argument 

can  be  drawn  in  favor  of  the  truth  of  a  religion 

52 


THE    PRACTICAL    MOTIVE 

which  is  able  to  accomplish  so  much  good. 
John  Stuart  Mill,  you  remember,  assumes  the 
contrary.  He  sadly  and  miserably  assumes 
that  in  this  world  truth  and  goodness  are 
opposed  to  each  other,  that  we  are  drawn  in 
contrary  directions  by  reason  and  by  con- 
science. This,  however,  is  a  false  assumption, 
and  it  is  this  conviction,  wrhich  forms  the  basis 
of  Mill's  religious  philosophy,  which  makes  his 
religious  writings,  in  spite  of  all  their  noble 
honesty  and  eloquence,  so  utterly  depressing. 
The  man  who  sincerely  believes  that  truth  and 
goodness  are  at  bottom  enemies  can  never 
know  a  happy  day.  But,  believing  that  these 
highest  attributes  of  God  are  in  peace  and 
harmony  with  each  other,  I  draw  this  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  the  truth  of  a  religion 
(  which  even  Mill  admits  possesses  the  highest 
ideal  of  goodness.  It  is  an  axiom  among 
all  thinking  men  that  truth  is  capable  of 
practical  application,  and  that,  in  the  long 

run,  truth  benefits   men  and  serves  them  in 

53 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

every  way,  while  error,  in  the  long  run, 
cheats  men,  disappoints  them,  and  does  them 
nothing  but  harm.  Is  it  not  fair  then  to 
infer  that  the  converse  of  this  proposition  is 
also  true,  namely,  that  that  which  most 
benefits  man,  sustains  him,  exalts  him,  (i.e., 
faith  in  God  and  immortality)  is  likely  to  be 
true,  while  that  which  humiliates  man,  para- 
lyzes his  efforts,  makes  him  bad,  hopeless, 
and  unhappy  (i.e.,  unbelief  in  God  and 
immortality)  is  likely  to  be  false.  In  single 
instances  and  in  the  case  of  beliefs  which  last 
but  a  short  time  this  might  not  hold,  but 
if  a  belief  which  has  embraced  humanity 
and  which  has  lasted  for  thousands  of  years 
were  founded  on  a  lie,  is  it  possible  that  the 
injurious  effects  of  that  lie  would  not  have 
made  themselves  overwhelmingly  apparent 
long  ago  ?  Is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that  the 
most  colossal  untruth  man  has  ever  entertained 
should  do  him  more  good  than  all  truth,  —  so 

much  good  that  all  other  truth  without  this 

54 


THE    PRACTICAL   MOTIVE 

untruth  cannot  make  man  either  good  or 
happy  ?  The  greater  the  error,  the  greater  the 
evil  effects  of  that  error;  but  even  enemies 
admit  that  belief  in  God  and  Christ  and 
immortality  has  done  man  more  good  than 
all  his  other  knowledge  and  belief.  The 
Practical  Motive,  therefore,  stands  as  a  legiti- 
mate motive  of  religious  faith.  Man  believes 
in  God  because  he  needs  God,  and  when  his 
needs  are  greatest  believes  most  firmly.  The 
good  religion  has  done  and  still  is  doing  is 
a  legitimate  motive  for  believing  in  it.  He 
who  believes  in  a  God  who  is  forever  guiding, 
directing  all  for  the  best,  in  a  God  who  resists 
and  eventually  overcomes  all  opposing  forces, 
who,  no  matter  how  great  the  evil,  is  Him- 
self greater;  who  not  merely  in  this  life,  but 
beyond  this  life,  has  means  to  heal  our  wounds 
and  to  correct  our  faults  which  He  incessantly 
employs;  he  who  believes  in  a  God  who  Him- 
self is  present  in  the  storm  which  desolates 

our   lives,    has   a   motive    in    life's    struggle, 

55 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

a  refuge  from  life's  tragedy,  a  hope  for  the 
future,  and,  though  the  sun  in  heaven  seem 
to  be  extinguished,  yet  for  him  it  will  shine 
again.  But  the  man  without  faith  in  God 
in  the  presence  of  such  fearful  trials,  stands 
helpless  and  despairing  when  his  earthly  com- 
pass fails.  I  know  that  for  our  earthly  life 
we  need  earthly  prudence  and  forethought, 
but  beyond  all  our  forethought  and  calcu- 
lation is  the  unknown,  incalculable  future 
where  only  one  calculation  holds,  that  is  faith 
in  Him  to  wrhom  nothing  is  unknown  or  un- 
expected. 

The  champion  of  the  Practical  Motive  in 
the  Angelican  Church  is  the  Evangelical  party, 
but,  in  every  spiritual  religion,  in  every  religion 
that  has  proposed  to  itself  the  redemption  and 
salvation  of  man,  there  has  been  an  evangelical 
party  which,  overwhelmed  with  the  thought  of 
the  value  of  the  soul,  has  sought  to  save  the 
soul.  In  no  religion  save  our  own  has  the 

Practical    Motive    of   faith    played    a  greater 

56 


THE    PRACTICAL    MOTIVE 

part  than  in  Buddhism.  It  is  the  evangelical 
spirit  of  Buddhism,  not  its  nihilistic  phi- 
losophy, that  makes  it  a  religion,  and  without 
the  Practical  Motive,  without  the  evangelical 
spirit,  no  religion  can  exist. 


57 


Wer  Gott  nicht  fiihlt  in  sich  und  alien  Lebenskreisen, 

Dem  werdet  ihr  ihn  nicht  beweisen  mit  Beweisen. 
Wer  Uberall  ihn  sieht,  was  wollt  ihr  dem  ihn  zeigen  ? 

Drum  wollt  mit  euren  Gottbeweisen  endlich  schweigen! 
Wollt  ihr  mir  auch  vielleicht  beweisen,  dass  ich  bin  ? 

Ich  glaubt'  es  schwerlich  euch,  glaubt'  ich's  nicht  meinem 
Sinn. 

RUCKEBT,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  Ill,  s.  142. 


59 


CHAPTER  IV 

THE   RATIONAL   MOTIVE    OF   FAITH 

THE  third  motive  of  faith,  the  Rational 
Motive,  I  shall  not  attempt  to  develop  at  such 
length.  When  we  reach  the  rational  argument 
for  God,  we  are  standing  on  more  or  less 
familiar  ground  where  each  will  take  the  way 
that  his  reason  and  culture  suggest.  By  a 
rational  motive  of  faith  I  understand  believing 
what  reason  and  experience  justify  us  in  be- 
lieving. We  need  reason  for  everything  that 
pertains  to  our  spiritual  life.  It  took  some 
reason  to  discover  even  our  other  two  motives. 
Without  reason  faith  degenerates  to  a  pure 
superstition.  But  by  mere  reason  alone,  by 
logic  and  mathematics,  we  shall  never  find  God, 
as  the  great  critical  philosophers  have  abun- 
dantly proved.  Two  things  ordinarily  prevent 

61 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

men  from  finding  the  living  God  by  reason; 
either  they  remain  obstinately  standing  in  this 
finite  world  surrounded  by  the  things  of  sense 
and  refusing  to  go  beyond  them,  or  else  they 
cut  themselves  off  from  the  healthy  world  of 
fact  and  plunge  into  a  maze  of  abstract 
thought. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  all  our  rational,  living 
ideas  of  God  arise  consciously  or  unconsciously 
from  the  experience  of  our  own  lives  or  from 
the  need  of  satisfying  our  own  minds.  This 
thing  is  so  and  that  is  so.  This  was,  that  will 
be.  My  house  was  built  by  some  one.  It  could 
not  build  itself.  The  world  was  built  by  some 
one.  All  its  parts  never  came  together  and 
fitted  themselves  together  by  their  own  motion. 
The  world  is  greater  and  more  wonderful 
than  my  house.  It  had  a  greater  and  more 
wonderful  architect  and  maker.  My  body  is 
moved  by  my  feeling  and  will.  Sun,  moon, 
and  stars  are  moved  by  a  greater  feeling  and 

will.     I  am  alive  now  and  change  from  day 

62 


THE   RATIONAL    MOTIVE 

to  day.  I  shall  continue  to  live  even  after 
death  and  shall  go  on  changing.  A  wise  and 
good  man  is  pure,  truthful,  just,  and  merciful. 
God  who  is  wiser  and  better  than  man  is  more 
pure,  more  just,  more  true,  more  merciful. 
Every  King  has  his  court,  his  retinue  of 
servants  and  messengers.  God,  the  King  of 
Kings,  likewise  has  His.  This  method  of  rea- 
soning, which  is  based  on  analogy  and  vague 
comparison,  is  seldom  if  ever  conclusive,  but 
for  man  it  is  a  necessity.  I  do  not  believe 
there  is  a  thought  in  regard  to  God  that  has 
borne  religious  fruit  which  did  not  arise  in  this 
natural  way  from  reasoning  on  the  experiences 
of  every -day  life.  Feuerbach  makes  this  the 
starting-point  of  his  atheism.  We  make  it 
the  starting-point  of  faith. 

This  habit  of  drawing  analogies  from  our 
own  experience  prevails  everywhere.  We 
find  evil  and  destruction  in  the  world  and  an 
evil  tendency  in  ourselves,  and  we  conclude 

that  evil  comes  from  an  evil  being,  a  Satan, 

63 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

an  Ahriman.  After  awhile  we  begin  to  see 
how  closely  the  evil  is  bound  up  with  the  good, 
how  often  it  is  a  condition  of  the  good ;  then  we 
are  not  so  sure  of  our  Satan,  our  Ahriman. 
To  an  unspiritual  people,  life  in  the  flesh  is 
everything.  Death  robs  us  of  our  flesh; 
hence  in  all  the  great  epics  of  antiquity  the 
life  after  death  is  but  a  shadow-life,  devoid 
of  all  reality  and  joy.  We  learn  the  lesson 
that  the  soul  is  the  great  reality,  and  the  life 
after  death  becomes  great  and  beautiful. 
Looked  at  superficially,  all  this  may  seem 
to  lead  to  skepticism  much  more  than  to  faith. 
We  remember  the  absurdities  which  are 
contained  in  the  mythologies  of  every  people 
as  to  gods,  demons,  witches,  spirits,  heaven 
and  hell,  which  have  found  far  wider  accept- 
ance than  the  greatest  truths  propounded  by 
the  wisest  heads.  At  all  events,  what  I  have 
stated  is  a  fact.  Every  one  of  these  beliefs 
has  arisen  by  reasoning  on  the  experiences 

of  life. 

64 


THE   RATIONAL   MOTIVE 

We  see,  then,  how  large  a  part  the  Rational 
Motive  plays  in  giving  form  and  coherence 
to  our  belief.  It  puts  the  objects  of  faith 
before  us  so  that  we  can  grasp  them  with  our 
minds.  It  is  reason  that  unites  our  souls  and 
that  gives  us  all  our  conceptions  of  God,  how- 
ever unreasonable  they  may  appear  to  others. 
The  lowrer  the  mental  capacity  of  a  people,  the 
cruder  its  generalization  on  experience,  and 
the  more  irrational  its  religious  beliefs.  And 
the  higher  the  moral  and  intellectual  develop- 
ment of  a  people,  the  vaster  and  truer  its 
inductions,  and  the  nobler  its  religious  con- 
ceptions. 

I  need  not  remind  you  that  we  are  dealing 
with  a  very  difficult  problem,  the  problem 
of  all  problems.  We  know  how  easy  it  is  to 
err  in  our  analyses  and  in  our  reasoning  about 
the  common  matters  of  e very-day  life.  How 
then  can  we  hope  to  reason  with  the  least 
success  on  divine  and  eternal  things  ?  Yet 

the  singular  fact  is  that,  if  we  wished  to  re- 

65 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

nounce  the  search  after  God,  there  is  some- 
thing within  us  that  would  not  let  us  do 
so.  Man  is  pledged  to  the  pursuit  of  the 
Infinite,  and,  though  wearied  by  his  long 
flights,  disappointed  because  the  approxi- 
mations toward  truth  are  so  slow,  frightened 
by  the  dragons  that  guard  all  fountains  of 
higher  wisdom,  he  sometimes  says  that  he 
will  give  up  the  pursuit  altogether,  yet  it  does 
not  take  him  long  to  tire  of  this  trivial  and 
mundane  existence,  and  again  he  turns  his 
face  toward  that  spiritual  \vorld  that  is  his 
true  home.  In  reality,  the  Rational  Motive 
is  exactly  like  the  others,  imperfect  and  yet 
necessary.  We  have  seen  the  harm  and  evil 
religion  has  inflicted  on  human  life,  yet,  on 
the  whole,  more  good  than  evil;  and  also 
that  the  way  to  remedy  the  harm  done  by 
religion  is  not  to  destrdy  religion,  but  to 
purify  it.  So  all  the  errors  of  reason  are  as 
nothing  compared  with  the  blindness  of  un- 
reason. I  had  rather  live  in  an  immoral 

66 


THE    RATIONAL    MOTIVE 

world  than  in  a  world  governed  by  fanatics. 
The  way  to  correct  the  errors  of  reason  is  not 
to  forswear  reason,  but  to  allow  reason  to 
correct  its  own  errors. 

There  is  indeed  one  view  of  life  that  would 
render  the  use  of  reason  superfluous  and 
impossible.  It  is  that  the  highest  and  last 
things,  God,  eternity,  immortality,  have  no 
natural  fixed  relation  to  this  life  and  this  world. 
If  that  is  true,  we  can  know  nothing  of  them, 
and  we  have  no  rational  motive  of  faith.  If 
God  is  not  present  in  this  world,  if  there  is 
nothing  in  Nature  and  in  the  spiritual  nature 
of  man  we  can  compare  with  Him,  reason  has 
nothing  to  work  on.  We  must  be  content 
with  an  irrational  faith  or  with  a  rational 
denial.  The  charm  of  evolutionary  philosophy 
is  that  it  seems  to  open  to  us  a  living  way  to 
God.  Here,  however,  I  abide  by  my  argument. 
The  only  thing  in  this  world  to  which  faith 
in  the  One  All-Comprehending  Spirit  of  God 

can  be  compared  is  faith  in  the  finite  human 

67 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

spirit.  This,  then,  is  our  point  of  departure, 
and,  applying  the  argument  again  as  we  have 
applied  it  before,  we  find  that  it  offers  us  two 
ways,  two  living  ways  to  God;  the  way  by 
the  soul  and  the  way  by  the  body.  Either 
we  can  pass  from  the  world  of  our  own  soul 
through  the  world  of  innumerable  other  finite 
souls  to  the  One  All-Comprehending  Soul  of 
God;  or  else  we  can  show  that  just  as  our 
body  is  the  mirror  and  revealer  of  our  soul, 
so  the  world  is  the  mirror  and  revealer  of 
God's  soul.  Whichever  way  we  take  we  are 
dealing  with  realities,  not  with  mere  words. 
We  are  in  the  domain  of  life,  and  hence,  if 
we  find  God,  we  find  the  living  God,  not  a 
mere  abstraction. 

Our    soul    is    certainly    a    little    world    in 
itself,  a   world   of   changing   and   conflicting 
thoughts,  passions,  instincts,  and  memories,— 
a  wonderful,  a  pathetic,  a  tragic,  a  beautiful 
world,  but  a  world  ruled  by  a  higher  power, 

a  will,  an  intelligence.    If  what  goes  on  in  the 

68 


THE   RATIONAL    MOTIVE 

soul  could  be  accurately  recorded  and  repro- 
duced, other  books  would  cease  to  be  written. 
In  comparison  with  this  series  of  marvelous 
and  terrible  pictures,  the  attempt  of  the  great 
masters  to  portray  life  would  appear  mere 
daubs.  And  yet  our  soul  is  but  one  of  many, 
one  of  an  innumerable  multitude  in  which 
collectively  the  same  thoughts,  the  same  hopes, 
motives,  interests,  memories  work  on  a  grander 
scale  and  produce  more  enduring  results. 
Just  as  in  the  little  world  of  our  spirit,  thoughts 
and  feelings  arise,  strive,  support  or  oppose 
one  another,  so  in  the  great  world  of  human 
souls,  spirits  arise,  cross  each  other,  strive, 
unite,  support  or  oppose  one  another;  and 
what  goes  on  in  the  little  world  is  for  the  most 
part  but  the  echo,  the  last  result  of  what  goes 
on  in  the  great.  Yet,  in  another  sense,  the 
little  world  of  the  individual  soul  is  the  root, 
the  source  of  the  great  world  through  which 
come  to  it  in  a  mighty  confluence  all  those 
ideas,  discoveries,  experiences,  emotions  which 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

make  public  opinion,  law,  morality,  science, 
religion,  —  in  short,  the  spiritual  life  of 
humanity.  And  on  the  other  hand,  all  that 
goes  on  in  the  great  world  of  souls  is  but 
a  higher,  deeper,  more  permanent,  more  uni- 
versal form  of  what  goes  on  in  our  own  soul. 
As  Plato  said,  "The  State  is  but  man  writ 
targe."  There  is  one  thing,  however,  in  our 
soul  that  seems  to  have  no  counterpart  in  the 
great  world  of  human  souls:  that  is  a  higher 
unity,  a  self-conscious  personality,  a  supreme 
will  which  unites  all  our  impressions  into  one 
continuous  experience,  and  which,  in  spite  of 
the  innumerable  conflicts  which  rage  in  the 
soul,  reconciles  the  combatants,  persists  from 
the  beginning  to  the  end,  gives  to  us  our  sense 
of  identity,  and  to  life  all  the  moral  purpose 
and  spiritual  meaning  that  it  possesses. 

At  first  it  seems  preposterous  to  speak  of 
such  a  consciousness,  such  a  guiding,  uniting 
will  in  humanity  at  large,  every  member  of 

which  appears  to  be  free  to  think  his  own 

70 


THE   RATIONAL   MOTIVE 

thoughts  and  to  go  his  own  way.  And  yet 
when  we  look  a  little  deeper,  we  see  that 
humanity  does  not  consist  of  a  number  of 
independent  units  each  working  for  its  own 
end,  but  rather  it  is  a  grand  unity  embracing 
innumerable  lesser  unities.  No  one  of  us 
thinks  his  own  thoughts  or  lives  for  himself. 
From  the  earliest  moment  of  our  lives,  human- 
ity takes  us  by  the  hand,  supports  our  bodies 
in  life,  spins  into  our  souls  the  old  knowledge, 
the  old  faith,  the  old  doubts,  and  sets  us  to 
work  with  or  against  our  will  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  its  purpose.  So  the  great  results 
of  human  life  slowly  arise,  language,  law, 
religion,  science,  poetry,  philosophy,  the  sub- 
jugation of  nature,  built  up  by  the  co-opera- 
tion of  innumerable  men,  few  of  whom  knew 
for  whom  or  what  they  were  working.  When 
we  see  the  same  thing  occurring  on  a  lower 
plane  among  the  animals,  when  we  see  bees 
and  ants  sacrificing  their  own  lives  for  the  com- 
mon good,  working  together  for  an  end  they 

71 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

do  not  know,  we  look  at  once  for  a  higher 
uniting  principle  which  we  call  instinct.  And 
what  is  instinct  but  a  name  for  a  uniting  in- 
telligence ?  So  when  we  look  at  human  history 
and  see  how  innumerable  human  beings  are 
united  by  one  great  purpose,  and,  though  men 
and  nations  die,  the  purpose  endures  and 
gathers  strength,  and,  though  they  resist,  the 
purpose  moves  on  toward  the  universal  goal, 
-  then  we  begin  to  understand  what  God 
means  when  He  says:  "All  souls  are  mine," 
and  what  it  means  to  be  in  God.  The  task 
is  greater,  the  time  immeasurably  longer  than 
is  required  for  the  little  purposes  and  struggles 
of  our  soul  in  this  world,  but  the  strength  of 
God  is  greater,  longer  is  His  eternity. 

I  wish  to  rest  for  a  moment  in  this  thought. 
I  wish  to  think  what  it  is  to  be  in  God,  sure 
of  my  ultimate  salvation  and  perfection  if  I  do 
not  set  my  will  obstinately  against  the  will  of 
God.  I  wish  to  realize  that  God  knows  my 

thought  because  I  am  His  thought,  that  He 

72 


THE    RATIONAL   MOTIVE 

loves  me  as  part  of  His  spiritual  nature  so  that 
His  victory  is  not  complete  till  I  have  con- 
quered, that  I  am  not  alone  but  bound  to  God 
by  every  fiber  of  my  being.  It  is  possible 
of  course  to  reject  this  view,  well  supported 
as  it  is  by  New  Testament  texts  ("I  in  them 
and  thou  in  me  ";  "In  Him  we  live  and  move 
and  have  our  being"),  but  no  one  can  say 
that  it  is  not  a  living  faith  capable  of  pro- 
ducing incalculable  results  in  the  life  of  him 
who  seriously  believes  it. 

In  every  human  soul  there  are  these  two 
elements,  unity  and  multiplicity;  above  the 
myriad  impressions  of  our  senses  and  the 
ceaseless  fluctuation  of  thought  is  the  unity 
of  self -consciousness  —  the  I  that  thinks  and 
feels  and  wills.  So  if  there  be  an  infinite 
Spirit,  in  Him  these  elements,  of  which  spirit 
consists,  are  not  lacking.  In  Him  there  is 
also  unity  and  plurality.  Above  all  His 
thoughts,  His  spirits,  His  worlds,  which  may 

be  higher  centers  of  spiritual  energy,  is  the 

73 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

unity  of  God's  consciousness  and  will,  the 
supreme  and  eternal  Ego  which  thinks  through 
all,  feels  through  all,  acts  through  all.  Re- 
member once  more,  this  is  no  attempt  to  prove 
the  existence  of  God ;  the  materials  for  such  a 
demonstration  are  not  given  to  us.  If  we 
cannot  know  the  soul  of  our  brother,  still  less 
can  we  know  the  Spirit  of  the  Eternal.  After 
all,  this  is  not  an  induction,  but  only  an  analogy. 
It  is  not  as  if  we  really  passed  by  induction 
through  an  infinite  series  of  finite  spirits  to  the 
Infinite  Spirit.  Our  own  soul  we  know,  but 
it  is  the  only  soul  we  know  in  this  universe. 
Yet,  just  as  the  existence  of  a  single  electric 
light  on  earth  points  to  the  existence  of  the 
electric  fluid  diffused  through  space,  so  the 
existence  of  a  single  soul  points  at  least  to  an 
antecedent  spirit  competent  to  account  for  it. 
This,  then,  is  the  way,  the  living  way  to  God 
and  eternal  life,  the  way  of  the  spirit.  Let  us 
next  see  what  the  body  reveals  to  us,  for,  if 

there  be  such  a  Spirit,  He  must  have  means 

74 


THE   RATIONAL   MOTIVE 

to  reveal  himself  to  us.  Who  would  believe 
in  a  tree  of  which  he  had  never  seen  a  leaf 
or  a  twig  ?  No  one  would  believe  in  the  soul 
of  a  worm  if  a  worm  had  no  way  to  reveal 
his  soul  to  us.  Neither  would  man  believe 
in  a  God  who  could  not  reveal  Himself  to  us. 
Only  let  us  remember  that  the  infinite  Soul 
of  God  can  never  reveal  Himself  altogether  or 
at  one  time  to  the  little  soul  of  man. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  traverse  the  second 
path  by  which  reason  comes  to  faith  in  God, 
but  I  will  merely  indicate  it.  The  proposition 
is  that  just  as  our  body  is  the  mirror  and 
revealer  of  our  soul,  so  the  world,  which  we 
may  regard  as  God's  body,  is  the  mirror  and 
revealer  of  the  Spirit  of  God.  This  is  the  way 
to  God  on  which  all  modern  science  moves 
if  its  ideas  are  consistently  carried  out, 
especially  the  idea  of  evolution.  The  argu- 
ment is  like  this.  At  the  present  time  there 
is  something  on  earth  which  we  call  spiritual 

life  which  embodies  itself  in  thought,  science, 

75 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

religion,  philosophy,  music,  law,  etc.  Where 
did  this  spiritual  life  come  from  ?  It  came 
from  spiritual  beings  called  men.  Where 
did  these  spiritual  beings  come  from  ?  So 
far  as  I  can  see,  two  answers  are  possible,  - 
either  they  were  created  by  a  higher  spiritual 
Being  we  are  accustomed  to  call  God,  or  they 
were  developed  from  the  animal  kingdom 
and  ultimately  from  the  earth.  The  first 
alternative  reaches  the  goal  at  once.  What 
does  the  second  point  to  ?  According  to  the 
second  alternative,  spiritual  beings  called  men 
wrere  developed  out  of  the  earth.  Where  did 
the  earth  come  from  ?  Out  of  what  was  it 
developed  ?  The  earth  w^as  developed  out 
of  a  gaseous  ring  thrown  off  by  the  sun.  That 
ring  broke  up  and  became  a  sphere  of  nebulous 
matter.  Further  than  that  we  cannot  go. 
What  is  the  conclusion  ?  This  globe  of  gaseous 
matter  contains  within  itself  the  germs  and 
elements  of  all  spiritual  life,  of  all  genius 

and  knowledge,  of  all  science  and  religion,  of 

76 


THE    RATIONAL   MOTIVE 

all  that  man  will  ever  know  or  think  or  feel, 
for  to  that  globe  of  gaseous  matter,  according 
to  the  evolutionary  view,  not  one  new  element 
has  been  added  from  without.  But  what  is 
this  but  to  say  that  this  globe  possessed  a  soul, 
a  soul  that  has  gone  on  revealing  itself,  shaping 
one  beautiful  object  after  another,  and  that 
will  go  on  creating  and  revealing  as  long  as 
the  earth  retains  its  present  condition.  If  it 
be  objected  that  this  view  leads  to  Professor 
James's  theory  of  a  plurality  of  superior 
spiritual  beings,  I  must  admit  that  it  does. 
My  escape  from  polytheism,  which  I  believe 
is  dead  forever,  lies  in  the  fact  that  these 
higher  spiritual  centers  are  not  independent 
but  co-ordinate  and  at  last  subordinated  to  a 
Highest  who  moves  through  all,  thinks  through 
all,  acts  through  all,  according  to  one  mighty 
purpose  and  plan.  They  may  perish,  as  our 
earth  in  its  present  form  will  surely  perish, 
but  He  endures.  Even  the  severest  material- 
ism, if  carried  far  enough,  leads  to  faith  in  God. 

77 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

There  is  the  argument.  We  of  this  genera- 
tion have  heard  and  read  a  great  deal  on  the 
subject  of  agnosticism.  It  has  been  announced 
as  one  of  the  great  discoveries  of  our  age  that 
it  is  impossible  for  man  to  know  God.  If  we 
confine  knowledge  to  that  which  can  be  pre- 
sented to  our  senses  or  proved  by  logic  or 
mathematics,  this  is  undoubtedly  true,  but 
the  discovery  is  robbed  of  its  sting  by  the  fact 
that  that  which,  after  our  own  soul,  is  nearest 
to  us,  the  soul  of  our  brother,  we  do  not  know 
either.  These  two  things,  faith  in  God  and 
faith  in  the  invisible  souls  of  other  men,  rest 
on  the  same  foundation,  and  it  is  a  good 
foundation.  No  one  of  the  three  motives  of 
faith  in  itself  is  strong  enough  to  hold  man- 
kind forever,  but  the  threefold  cord  is  not  eas- 
ily broken.  With  one  man,  one  motive  will 
weigh  more  heavily;  with  another  man, 
another.  This  being  the  case,  these  motives 
cannot  help  coming  into  collision.  Hence 

arises  the  strife  of  churches  and  parties,  and 

78 


THE    RATIONAL    MOTIVE 

hence,  a  much  more  important  thing,  the 
struggle  of  religious  motives  in  our  own  per- 
sonal lives.  We  begin  with  the  traditional 
motive,  believing  what  we  were  taught  to 
believe,  but  by  and  by  our  childhood's  Heaven 
vanishes.  The  old  faith  no  longer  affords  us 
the  necessary  strength  and  support  and  be- 
comes more  and  more  difficult.  Then  life 
itself  begins  to  speak  to  us  of  God.  God  con- 
fronts us  in  joy  or  sorrow  or  opportunity, 
and  the  whole  vast  problem  of  life  and  death 
presses  on  us  for  an  answer.  Or  the  child 
becomes  a  man,  and  the  man  demands  a 
reason  for  the  faith  that  is  proposed  to  him. 
It  is  not  enough  to  say  men  have  believed  this 
in  the  past.  He  will  reply,  men  have  believed 
many  legends  and  fables.  So  the  conflict 
arises  between  traditional  faith,  the  needs  of 
the  heart  and  the  rights  of  reason.  But  out 
of  that  conflict  proceeds  religious  development, 
higher  conceptions,  a  deeper  peace,  a  faith 

that  cannot  be  shaken.     If  the  young  knew 

79 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

this  secret,  how  many  sorrows  they  would 
avoid!  If  bigoted  partisans  and  champions 
of  one  of  these  three  good  motives  knew  it, 
how  much  strife  and  persecution  the  church 
would  avoid!  In  Christendom  the  champion 
of  the  Rational  Motive  is  Protestantism,  and 
in  the  Anglican  communion  its  champion  is 
the  Broad  Church  Party. 


80 


Gott  1st  ein  Denkender,  sonst  war'  ich  iiber  ihn, 
Ich  aber  denke,  dass  ich  unter  ihm  nur  bin. 

Gott  ist  ein  Wollender,  sonst  hatt'  ich  mehr  als  er, 
Mein  Wollen  aber  kommt  von  seinem  Wollen  her. 

Mit  deinem  Denken  sei,  mit  deinem  Wollen  still 
Vor  seinem,  liebes  Herz!   er  denkt  in  dir  und  will. 

RUCKERT,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  Ill,  s.  128. 


81 


CHAPTER  V 

ON   THE    SPIRITUAL   NATURE    OF   GOD 

BY  God  I  understand  the  One  highest, 
deepest,  all-comprehending,  conscious  Spirit. 
By  a  spirit  I  understand  what  men  usually 
understand  by  it,  namely,  a  being  possessing 
consciousness  and  will.  To  suppose  that  the 
conscious  souls  of  men  are  the  product  of  a 
being  devoid  of  consciousness  is  an  absurdity. 

He  who  thinks  of  God  worthily  must  be- 
lieve that  God  knows  all  that  His  creatures 
know  and  also  beyond  and  above  what  they 
all  together  know.  He  must  also  believe  that 
man's  goodness  is  the  reflection  and  fruit  of 
God's  goodness;  but  as  yet  the  pale  reflection 
and  the  unripened  fruit.  God's  consciousness, 
therefore,  is  not  a  mere  transcendent  con- 
sciousness that  hovers  over  the  consciousness 

83 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

of  man  as  a  cloud  hovers  over  a  mountain; 
neither  is  it  a  mere  immanent  consciousness 
which  rises  no  higher  than  that  of  man.  It 
is  both  the  one  and  the  other.  The  first  is 
the  error  of  most  Christian  theology;  the 
second  is  the  error  of  heathen  speculation. 
Christianity  speaks  of  an  all-present,  almighty 
God,  without  whom  no  sparrow,  no  hair  of 
our  head,  falls  to  the  ground;  of  a  God  in 
whom  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being; 
yet  we  have  never  understood,  never  acted 
on  this  belief.  We  have  regarded  the  world 
as  a  world  deeply  fallen  from  God,  and 
Nature  as  an  evil  thing  or  at  best  as  a  soulless 
mechanism.  Christianity  has  preserved  the 
unity,  the  majesty,  the  transcendence  of  God, 
but  it  has  lost  the  true  sense  of  God's  relation 
to  the  world  and  to  ourselves.  Heathen 
thought  has  found  God  in  Nature  only  to 
lose  Him,  to  divide  Him,  to  swamp  Him  in 
its  manifold  processes.  This  is  the  difficulty 

that  confronts   all   religious   thought,   to  find 

84 


THE   SPIRITUAL   NATURE    OF   GOD 

the  One  without  losing  the  many,  to  rise  to 
the  Transcendent  without  forsaking  the  Im- 
manent. God  is  not  inaccessible  to  us  in  the 
sense  that  we  receive  nothing  from  Him. 
His  riches  surpass  our  power  to  receive;  so 
that  with  all  our  searching,  all  our  capacity, 
we  cannot  exhaust  our  Creator.  God  is 
nearer  to  us  than  the  earth  our  mother,  nearer 
than  our  parents,  nearer  than  any  finite 
being  whatsoever,  because  He  is  the  source  of 
our  life.  Wherever  we  go,  whatever  we  do, 
His  Spirit  confronts  us.  He  is  present  as 
thoughts  are  present,  as  joy  and  sorrow  are 
present  in  our  soul.  He  sees  and  He  is  not 
seen.  He  not  only  sees,  He  feels.  All  our 
experience  is  a  part  of  His  experience.  We 
may  forget  Him,  but  we  cannot  escape  Him. 
We  may  forget  Him,  but  He  does  not  forget 
us.  The  object  of  religion  is  to  find  in  this 
invisible  Companion  no  accuser,  no  haunting, 
tormenting  presence,  but  a  friend,  a  Father 

through  whom  all  blessing  comes. 

85 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

So  we  conceive  of  God  in  our  hearts  and 
find  peace  and  harmony  and  unity,  the  little 
soul  dwelling  in  but  not  extinguished  by  the 
Great  Soul.  We  look  out  into  the  world  and 
all  we  see  is  disharmony  and  multiplicity  and 
contradiction,  the  everlasting  splitting  up  of 
Nature,  matter  scattered  up  and  down  and 
rolled  into  a  thousand  forms,  the  solidest 
divisible  into  parts  and  particles,  at  last  into 
atoms.  Effects  are  propagated  hither  and 
thither,  from  body  to  body  and  from  part  to 
part.  Movements  cross  each  other  on  a 
thousand  paths.  Centers  there  are  in  plenty, 
but  where  is  the  center  of  all  centers  ?  Laws 
in  abundance,  yet  each  with  application  only 
to  its  o\vn  sphere.  And  as  it  is  in  the  world  of 
bodies,  so  is  it  also  in  the  world  of  souls. 
Every  spirit  is  external  to  every  other.  No 
one  comprehends  (O  mystery!)  w^hat  is  taking 
place  in  the  soul  that  is  next  his  own. 
None  knows  aright  whence  it  comes  and 

whither  it  goes.     Principles  there  are  enough, 

86 


THE   SPIRITUAL   NATURE   OF    GOD 

yet  more  strife  than  principles.  Purposes 
without  end,  but  what  is  the  purpose  of  all  our 
purposes  ?  No  day,  no  hour,  no  minute  is 
sure  of  the  next.  One  fashion  to-day  and 
another  to-morrow.  What  is  highly  esteemed 
here  is  accounted  accursed  there.  In  short, 
there  seems  to  be  nothing  but  an  unending 
play  of  individual  forces;  no  unity,  no  whole, 
no  evidence  of  the  all-comprehending,  all- 
controlling  Mind. 

Yet  this  conclusion  is  suggested  to  us  only 
by  the  superficiality  of  our  glance.  We  look 
into  the  face  of  a  friend  and  we  see  something. 
Not  without  reason  do  we  say  the  face  is  the 
mirror  of  the  soul.  But  do  we  see  all  ?  Much 
is  too  high,  much  is  too  deep,  much  too  subtle 
to  be  read  by  such  a  glance.  WTe  look  into  the 
face  of  Nature  and  we  see  more,  but  do  we 
see  all  ?  Much  is  too  high,  too  deep,  too  com- 
plex to  reveal  itself  to  our  gaze.  Yet  the  deeper 
we  go  the  more  we  find  of  unity  and  of  purpose. 

WTe  look  at  the  universe  in  space  and  we  see 

87 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

how  all  worlds  act  on  one  another  in  the  same 
way,  here  and  millions  of  miles  hence,  now 
and  millions  of  years  ago.  The  same  law 
prevails  here  and  everywhere,  now  and  forever. 
We  look  at  the  universe  in  time  and  we  see  the 
unfolding  of  a  mighty  plan,  innumerable 
forces  combining,  supporting,  and  opposing 
one  another  for  the  achievement  of  a  distant 
unfulfilled  purpose.  We  look  within  ourselves 
and  we  see  man  forever  stretching  out  his 
hands  to  God.  The  fact  that  we  seek  Him, 
must  seek  Him,  is  the  strongest  proof  that  He 
is,  and  the  fact  that  men  everywhere  and  al- 
ways have  sought  after  God  is  proof  enough 
that  they  must  seek  Him.  We  ask  then  no 
more,  —  does  God  exist  ?  —  but  how  does  He 
exist  ?  Although  we  believe  that  the  universe 
is  instinct  with  His  presence  and  His  spirit, 
although  as  far  as  we  can  follow  the  vast 
ascending  scale  of  created  beings  we  find  them 
full  of  God,  some  more  than  others,  although 

every  stair  leads  to  Him,  every  star  points  to 

88 


THE   SPIRITUAL   NATURE    OF    GOD 

Him,  He  is  not  merely  the  highest  stair  and 
throned  above  all  stars.  In  one  sense  He  is 
a  Being  solitary  and  apart,  separate  from  all 
orders  of  being  beneath  Him.  In  one  sense  He 
is  one  with  them  all,  Father,  Creator,  Arche- 
type, above  all  space  and  time,  and  also  the 
Eternal  Spirit  that  fills  and  sustains  all  by 
His  presence.  Infinity  and  Unity,  these  are 
the  two  numbers  by  which  man  counts  God. 
God  is  the  One  and  the  All,  the  One  of  all 
fractions,  yet  Himself  unbroken,  the  All  of  all 
units  where  every  unit  numbers  thousands, 
the  center  of  all  circles,  the  circumference  of 
all  centers,  the  beginning,  middle,  and  end,  the 
solution  of  all  contradictions,  the  final  bond 
of  creation.  But  he  who  will  dissolve  God  and 
break  this  uniting  bond  finds  nothing  but 
contradictions.  He  falls  into  contradiction 
with  the  world,  with  himself,  with  every  one. 
Every  man  born  into  the  world  has  one 
father,  yet  as  one  ascends,  the  number  of 

his  ancestors  increases.     He  has  two  grand- 

89 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

fathers,  four  great-grandfathers;  and  with 
every  generation  the  number  doubles.  How 
many  fathers,  then,  had  the  human  race  ? 
Evidently  an  infinite  number.  On  the  con- 
trary, only  one,  and  the  woman  from  whom 
they  all  descended  was  made  of  one  of  his  ribs. 

So  it  might  seem  that  the  multiplicity  of 
worlds  points  to  a  multiplicity  of  divine  beings. 
Above  man  and  greater  than  he  is  the  earth. 
One  step  above  the  earth  is  the  sun  with  a  few 
planets.  One  step  above  the  sun  is  a  whole 
milky  way  of  suns  united  into  a  system.  A 
step  above  the  milky  way  is  probably  another 
system  containing  more  hosts  of  suns  than  it 
has  suns.  How  many  world  systems  are  there 
in  the  highest  heaven  ?  Only  one,  one  divine 
universe.  The  whole  world  is  one,  and  all 
systems,  hosts,  suns,  planets,  moons  have 
come  from  One,  and  by  that  One  are  united. 

Again,  however  high  any  particular  being 
stands,  it  has  still  a  world  outside  itself,  other 

beings  like  itself  above  and  beneath  it.     Only 

90 


THE   SPIRITUAL   NATURE    OF    GOD 

the  higher  a  being  is  the  more  it  possesses  and 
includes  within  itself,  the  more  it  is  determined 
by  itself  an^  the  less  by  external  circumstance. 
Man  depends  absolutely  upon  the  earth,  the 
earth  less  ^absolutely  upon  the  sun,  the  sun, 
which  supplies  its  own  heat,  still  less  upon  the 
milky  way.  God,  however,  as  the  totality  of 
all  being  and  action,  has  no  world  outside 
Himself,  no  being  external  to  Him  to  limit 
His  freedom  and  almightiness.  All  spirits 
dwell  within  His  Spirit  as  parts  of  His  universal 
mind.  All  worlds  form  His  infinite  body. 
He  alone  is  absolutely  free;  determined,  led, 
compelled  by  nothing  outside  Himself. 

But  however  high  God  stands  above  His 
creatures,  He  uses  them  as  His  instruments 
and  organs  and  as  the  means  of  His  grace. 
He  is  not  blind  nor  deaf,  for  He  sees  with  the 
eyes  of  all  His  creatures  and  hears  with  all 
their  ears.  No  creature  is  so  humble  and 
small  that  it  does  not  serve  God  as  a  sphere 

of  His  action.     No  creature  is  so  great  and 

91 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

high  that  it  is  not  part  of  a  still  greater  and 
higher,  through  which  it  contributes  its  pro- 
portion to  the  performance  of  God's  will. 
So  in  God  we  are  all  united.  Our  little  souls 
are  parts  of  His  soul,  which  works  through  us 
as  a  mind  works  through  its  thoughts.  We 
are  conscious  of  this  infinite  element  within 
us,  the  point  at  which  the  collective  Will  of  the 
Universe  touches  our  will.  We  call  it  con- 
science. To  know  God  as  the  Being  whose 
knowledge  comprehends  all  that  is  known  or 
can  be  known  is  the  highest  of  all  knowledge. 
If  a  man  would  know  everything  there  is  to  be 
known  in  the  world,  he  need  only  know  wrhat 
that  Being  knows  who  is  above  the  world; 
and  did  he  know  all  else  and  did  not  know 
that  there  is  such  a  Being,  his  knowledge 
would  be  but  patchwork.  Since  God  knows 
all,  He  knows  our  sorrows,  our  sins  and 
shortcomings.  He  surveys  the  world  through 
your  eyes.  He  feels  the  sorrows  of  existence 

through  your  heart.     Therefore  let  what  you 

92 


THE    SPIRITUAL    NATURE    OF    GOD 

think  and  feel  and  see  and  do  be  worthy  of 
His  eyes  and  of  His  compassion. 

To  direct  our  will  consciously  in  accordance 
with  the  will  of  God,  beyond  that  man  has 
no  power  to  will.  God's  will  is  one,  and  we 
are  many,  yet  He  holds  us  and  leads  us  as  the 
citizens  of  a  country  are  held  by  one  code  of 
laws,  one  system  of  morals,  one  standard  of 
truth;  and  he  who  strives  against  God's 
ordering  is  still  held  by  it.  We  are  like  a 
flock  of  sheep,  driven  by  God  on  a  long  and 
broad  way.  Every  one  of  the  flock  has 
liberty  within  limits  to  go  where  and  how  he 
will.  So  they  move  on.  One  turns  to  the 
right,  another  to  the  left.  Some  go  before, 
others  lag  behind.  Still  it  remains  a  flock, 
although  a  scattered  flock,  and  it  continues 
to  move  in  the  general  direction  in  which  God 
is  leading  it.  And  none  with  all  his  freedom 
can  wander  so  widely  from  the  way,  or  turn 
back  so  far,  or  remain  behind  so  long  as  to  be 

lost.    The  Shepherd  finds  him  and  drives  him 

93 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

on.  And  not  one  by  his  straying  can  lead  the 
flock  astray;  but  rather  the  way  taken  by  the 
whole  flock  is  the  path  to  which  the  wanderer 
returns.  A  storm  arises,  and  the  whole  flock 

cowers  and   is   drawn   together.     The   storm 

» 

passes  and  the  flock  is  all  there.  In  the  storm 
the  Shepherd  was  present.  He  was  in  the 
storm  Himself.  Yes,  He  was  the  storm  that 
drove  together  those  whom  cloudless  skies 
had  separated.  You  do  not  see  that  Shepherd, 
He  is  not  before  you,  He  is  not  behind  you. 
Is  He  then  unreal  ?  You  do  not  see  Him 
outside  you  because  He  is  within  you,  and  not 
in  you  only,  but  also  in  all  the  flock;  and  not 
in  the  flocks  of  earth  alone,  but  also  in  the 
heavenly  flocks.  He  is  not  only  in  the  flock, 
but  He  is  also  the  way  along  which  the  whole 
flock  moves  to  eternal  life.  That  fact  alone 
makes  it  possible  for  the  Heavenly  Shepherd 
to  lead  or  drive  such  a  flock  as  His  along  so 
broad  and  dangerous  a  way,  without  losing  one 

of  His  sheep.     He  could  not  lose  a  sheep  of 

94 


THE  SPIRITUAL  NATURE  OF  GOD 

His  without  losing  part  of  Himself.  He  feels 
the  thirst  and  hunger  and  weariness  of  every 
sheep  as  His  own,  and  He  will  satisfy  each 
in  His  time. 

There  is  no  satisfaction  higher  than  the 
satisfaction  of  satisfying  God.  This  is  peace 
of  conscience  and  joy  of  conscience  and  true 
blessedness.  The  highest  joy  for  us  is  to 
find  pleasure  in  the  Highest,  but  the  pleasure 
of  the  Highest  is  the  highest,  most  enduring 
happiness  of  all  His  children.  Therein  is 
every  joy  that  is  not  the  cause  of  a  greater 
grief,  therein  is  every  grief  that  is  the  cause 
of  a  greater  joy,  the  healing  of  every  sick- 
ness, the  correction  of  every  fault,  and  after 
punishment  peace.  He  who  will  attain  the 
highest  inward  blessedness  must  work  with 
God  to  increase  the  happiness  of  all.  To 
seek  our  own  happiness  is  not  enough,  since 
we  can  find  our  happiness  only  through 
others.  Yet  the  smallest  creature  that  does 

not  destroy  a  greater  has  a  place  in  the  King- 

95 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

dom  of  God.  To  seek  our  own  happiness  at 
the  expense  of  another's  pain  and  sin  is  to 
strive  with  God  who  desires  the  happiness  of 
all.  Woe  to  that  man!  God  will  bring  his 
works  to  naught.  To  set  an  example  which 
others  may  not  follow  is  to  place  a  stone  of 
stumbling  on  God's  great  highway.  To 
increase  the  good  and  destroy  the  evil  it  is 
necessary  to  bear  pain  and  sorrow  and  to  fight 
manfully,  not  for  the  sake  of  the  grief  and 
the  strife,  but  only  for  the  sake  of  the  joy  and 
the  peace.  No  sacrifice  can  please  God  that 
is  a  real  sacrifice.  He  gives  us  always  the 
great  for  the  little,  the  eternal  for  the  temporal. 
No  sacrifice  can  please  God  that  is  a  sacrifice 
for  its  own  sake.  He  would  not  accept  the 
life  of  Isaac  for  which  no  joy  could  atone  to 
Abraham.  All  that  you  sacrifice  to  the  good 
of  others  will  be  returned  to  you  a  hundred- 
fold in  their  good  and  happiness;  but  if  you 
think  to  please  yourself  alone,  God  rewards 
you  with  pain  and  punishment. 


THE   SPIRITUAL   NATURE    OF   GOD 

Die  Seligkeit  ist  nicht,  nur  selig  selbst  zu  sein, 

Die  Seligkeit  ist  nicht  allein  und  nicht  zu  zwein; 
Die  Seligkeit  ist  nicht  zu  vielen,  nur  zu  alien; 

Mir  kann  nur  Seligkeit  der  ganzen  Welt  gefallen. 
Wer  selig  war'  und  miisst'  unselig  andre  wissen, 

Die  eigne  Seligkeit  war'  ihm  dadurch  entrissen. 
Und  die  Vergessenheit  kann  Seligkeit  nicht  sein, 

Vielmehr  das  Wissen  ist  die  Seligkeit  allein. 
Drum  kann  die  Seligkeit  auf  Erden  nicht  bestehen, 

Weil  hier  die  Seligen  so  viel  Unsel'ge  sehn. 
Und  der  Gedanke  nur  gibt  Seligkeit  auf  Erden, 

Dass  die  Unseligen  auch  selig  sollen  werden. 
Wer  dieses  weiss,  der  tragt  mit  Eifer  bei  sein  Teil 

Zum  allgemeinen,  wie  zum  eignen  Seelenheil. 
Gott  aber  weiss  den  Weg  zu  aller  Heil  allein; 

Drum  ist  nur  selig  Gott,  in  ihm  nur  kannst  du's  sein.1 

All  good  is  a  treasure  God  guards  for  all, 
but  everything  that  you  do  moves  in  a  circle 
greater  or  smaller.  Ofttimes  the  effect  of  your 
act  goes  far  beyond  you  into  the  distance 
whither  you  cannot  follow  it,  but  it  returns 
heavy  with  consequences.  You  call  it  your  act 
when  it  departs,  retribution  when  it  returns 
with  all  it  has  gathered  on  its  way;  and  though 
the  arc  through  which  it  moves  be  so  great 

,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  I,  s.  58. 
97 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

that  it  does  not  find  you  here,  it  will  find  you 
there.  Least  of  all  is  that  sinner  to  be  envied 
and  congratulated  who  escapes  all  punishment 
in  this  life.  He  has  all  his  punishment  yet  to 
bear.  An  unbeliever  once  asked  Plutarch 
why  God  does  not  prove  His  existence  by 
punishing  the  wicked  with  death,  and  the  wise 
Plutarch  replied :  "  God  proves  His  existence 
and  •punishes  them  by  letting  them  live." 
Then  send  out  good  deeds,  launch  them  with 
strength  that  they  may  travel  far;  and  your 
reward  shall  by  no  means  fail.  God  rewards 
you  once  in  the  joy  you  experience  in  doing 
good,  a  second  time  in  the  good  your  deed 
accomplishes.  Again  He  rewards  you  by  the 
light  of  His  countenance.  Remember,  he 
who  does  good  for  the  love  of  God  is  rewarded 
by  the  love  of  God  which  exceeds  all  other 
rewards.  We  often  hear  the  sinner  spoken  of 
as  the  God-forsaken,  the  God-abandoned, 
as  him  whom  God  has  rejected  and  handed 
over  to  a  fearful  doom.  Nothing  is  more  false. 


THE   SPIRITUAL    NATURE    OF    GOD 

God  is  present  in  the  soul  of  the  sinner  even 
more  constantly  than  in  the  soul  of  the  right- 
eous. Almost  everything  we  know  of  God's 
fatherly  love  is  taught  us  by  God's  desire  to 
save.  The  sinner  is  in  God  just  as  the  saint 
is  in  God,  but  he  is  in  God  in  a  different  way. 
All  the  forces  of  God's  being  are  set  in  the 
direction  of  righteousness.  To  that  mighty 
stream  of  tendency  the  sinner  stands  as  an 
obstruction.  His  will  is  turned  against  the 
will  of  God,  and  the  will  of  God  is  turned 
against  him.  It  bears  upon  him  heavily, 
chastising  him  by  love,  by  memory,  by  re- 
morse, and  by  the  natural  penalty  of  the  laws 
he  has  broken;  not  because  God  hates  him, 
or  wishes  to  destroy  him,  but  because  God 
loves  him  and  would  turn  him  from  the  evil 
which  would  destroy  him.  So  I  understand  the 
divine  commandments  which  are  written  in  our 
hearts.  They  were  given  to  us  not  merely 
for  our  good,  which  all  admit,  but  for  our 

highest  happiness,  which  only  a  few  will  allow. 

99 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

In  spite  of  all  the  evil  that  has  been  spoken  of 
it,  happiness  is  the  stone  set  at  naught  by  the 
builders,  which  turns  out  to  be  the  headstone 
of  the  corner;  only  to  build  safely  on  this  stone, 
it  must  be  placed  on  its  broad  side  —  that  is, 
we  must  consider  not  our  happiness  alone, 
but  the  happiness  of  others.  So  God's  com- 
mandment warns  me  that  I  should  not  pur- 
chase temporary  happiness  at  the  price  of 
lasting  misery  to  myself  or  others,  for  not  thus 
can  I  please  God ;  but  that  I  should  act  so  as 
to  increase  my  own  permanent  happiness  and 
the  happiness  of  other  men.  In  so  doing  I  am 
pleasing  God  and  obeying  His  commandments, 
for  God  wishes  to  reap  what  He  has  sown 
in  me  as  much  as  in  another  man.  Only  be- 
ware of  thinking  that  sensual  pleasure  is  also 
God's  pleasure.  Beware  of  thinking  that 
whatever  selfish  pleasure  you  enjoy  is  pleasure 
for  all,  and  also  for  God.  Beware  of  desiring, 
with  your  feeble  insight,  to  order  your  life 

otherwise  than  it  has   been  ordered  for  you 

100 


THE   SPIRITUAL   NATURE    OF    GOD 

above  in  the  divine  commandments.  At  the 
last  it  comes  to  this:  whether  I  will  sacrifice 
myself  to  others,  or  others  to  myself;  whether 
I  will  sacrifice  the  short  pleasure  that  brings 
remorse  and  sorrow  to  the  joy  of  serving  God, 
which  is  followed  by  no  pain.  For  above  all 
lower  joy  there  is  this  higher  joy  and  peace  of 
conscience  that  soars  over  lower  pleasure  as 
a  dove  soars  over  the  green  fields.  This 
joy  I  have,  and  this  joy  God  has  in  me  when  I 
direct  my  life  so  that  in  the  broadest  sense  and 
for  the  longest  time  it  serves  to  promote  the 
happiness,  health,  and  salvation  of  my  fellow 
men.  This  happiness  in  God  I  shall  have  so 
soon  as  I  realize  that  His  will,  His  laws,  His 
divine  Providence  can  be  directed  towards 
nothing  else  than  the  perfection  and  blessed- 
ness of  me  and  all  mankind.  If  God  demands 
this  rule  of  life  of  me,  I  will  believe  that  He 
practises  it  Himself,  that  His  happiness  is  not 
a  thing  apart  from  the  happiness  of  His  chil- 
dren. God  also  suffers  in  me.  He  suffers 

101 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

when  I  am  unhappy  and  when  I  sin.  He 
suffers  more  when  I  torment  myself  with 
unavailing  remorse.  Yet  He  has  means  to 
remove  my  sorrow  and  my  sin,  which  He 
incessantly  employs.  I  await  my  time. 


102 


Bedenke,  dass  ein  Gott  in  deinem  Leibe  wohnt, 

Und  vor  Entweihung  sei  der  Tempel  stets  verschont. 

Du  krankst  den  Gott  in  dir,  wenn  du  den  Liisten  frohnest, 
Und  mehr  noch,  wenn  du  in  verkehrter  Selbstqual  stohnest. 

Gott  stieg  herab,  die  Welt  zu  schaun  mit  deinen  Augen: 
Ihm  sollst  du  Opferduft  mit  reinen  Sinnen  hauchen, 

Er  ist,  der  in  dir  schaut  und  fiihlt  und  denkt  und  spricht; 

Drum    was  du    schaust,    fiihlst,    deiikst    und    sprichst,   sei 
gottlich  licht. 

RUCKERT,  Die  Weishdi  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  I,  s.  6. 


103 


CHAPTER  VI 

MAN'S  LIFE  IN  GOD 

THE  secret  of  all  spiritual  religion  is  the 
union  of  the  human  soul  with  the  divine  soul, 
the  belief  that  man's  spirit  and  God's  spirit 
are  in  their  essence  one.  Without  this  belief 
man's  relations  with  God  become  formal  and 
external.  The  world  robbed  of  the  haunting 
presence  of  an  indwelling  deity  becomes 
irreligious  and  profane.  This  was  the  result 
of  the  Neo-Platonic  philosophy.  By  exalting 
God  far  above  the  sphere  of  this  base  terres- 
trial world  and  by  representing  Him  as  defiled 
by  every  contact  with  it,  Philo  and  his  friends 
unconsciously  contributed  to  the  spiritual 
bankruptcy  and  to  the  sense  of  God-forsaken 
loneliness  that  took  possession  of  the  world 

shortly  after  the  beginning  of  the  Christian 

105 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

Era.  Christ's  joyous  recognition  of  God's 
presence  in  Nature  and  in  human  life  and  the 
profoundly  biological  quality  of  His  thought 
successfully  opposed  this  tendency  and  brought 
God  back  to  the  world.  Yet  again  and  again 
in  the  history  of  His  religion  the  spiritual 
nature  of  God  and  the  unspeakably  intimate 
ties  that  bind  Him  to  His  creatures  have  been 
sacrificed  to  the  judicial  and  regal  conception 
of  the  Godhead.  To  reconcile  these  claims 
and  to  preserve  a  just  balance  between  these 
aspects  of  the  Divine  Nature,  the  doctrine  of 
the  Trinity  was  formulated.  It  endeavors  to 
express  the  transcendency  of  God,  His  im- 
manency, and  man's  oneness  with  God  as 
revealed  in  Christ. 

For  us  the  final  word  of  religion  on  the  sub- 
ject of  God's  nature  is  the  saying  ascribed 
to  Jesus  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  "God  is  spirit, 
and  they  that  worship  Him  must  worship  Him 
in  spirit  and  in  truth."  Men  have  felt  the 

finality  of  that  saying,  yet  they  have  hesitated 

106 


AN'S    LIFE    IN    GOD 

to  accept  it  literally,  fearing  to  become  in- 
volved in  the  mazes  of  pantheism.  The 
greater  the  Divine  Soul  is  represented  to  be, 
the  nearer  to  us  and  to  the  course  of  Nature, 
-  the  greater  the  danger  that  the  human  soul 
will  be  swallowed  up  and  lost  in  Him,  the 
more  immediate  His  responsibility  for  the  evil 
of  the  world.  Yet  what  has  led  men  astray 
here  is  a  false  analogy,  the  fundamental  error 
of  all  pantheism.  Forgetting  the  Apostle's 
advice,  they  have  been  misled  into  comparing 
spiritual  things  with  physical  instead  of  com- 
paring spiritual  things  with  spiritual.  God's 
mind  is  not  a  vast  chaotic  sea  in  which  every- 
thing mingles  and  runs  together  in  confusion, 
as  many  pantheists  have  ridiculously  imagined. 

Du  bist  kein  Tropfe,  der  im  Ocean  verschwimmt, 

Du  fiihlest  dich  als  Geist  auf  ewig  selbst  bestimmt. 
Vom  hochsten  Geiste  fUhlest  du  dich  nicht  zur  Verschwim- 

mung 

Im  hochsten  Geist  bestimmt,  sondern  zur  Selbstbestim- 
mung.1 

1  RtJCKERT,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  Ill,  s.  115. 
107 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

It  is  a  world  of  light,  an  infinitude  of  ordered 
thought.  The  higher  the  mind,  the  higher  its 
organization,  the  more  permanent  its  memories, 
the  more  distinct  its  thoughts.  If  we  would 
know  how  spirits  exist  in  God  in  closest 
association  with  Him  and  with  one  another, 
yet  without  losing  their  identity  or  responsi- 
bility, we  have  only  one  certain  clue,  namely, 
to  look  within  ourselves  and  see  how  thoughts 
exist  and  are  associated  in  our  minds.  To 
some  this  may  seem  a  bold  inference,  a  haz- 
ardous analogy,  but  we  have  no  other.  If  we 
desire  to  think  of  God  as  a  spiritual  being, 
and  we  have  no  higher  term  in  which  to  ex- 
press Him,  we  must  remember  that  all  we  know 
of  spirits  and  spiritual  beings  we  know  from 
the  contemplation  of  our  own  souls.  Nor  is 
this  influence  so  crude  and  anthropomorphic 
as  some  may  suppose.  Having  learned  the 
general  laws  and  properties  of  matter  from 
the  insignificant  particles  which  are  analyzed 

in  our  laboratories,  we  do  not  hesitate  to  affirm 

108 


MAN'S    LIFE    IN    GOD 

that  under  the  same  conditions  those  laws 
prevail  everywhere.  Having  deduced  the 
principles  of  logic  and  of  mathematics,  we 
proclaim  those  principles  to  be  of  eternal  and 
universal  application.  Having  once  risen  to 
the  height  of  the  moral  law,  we  declare  its 
validity  in  the  highest  Heaven.  The  plain 
truth  is,  all  that  we  know  or  believe  of  the 
moral  and  spiritual  nature  of  God  we  know 
and  believe  through  the  experiences  of  our  own 
souls.  Eliminate  this,  and  the  idea  of  God 
becomes  a  mere  vacuum,  a  conception  without 
content.  God  and  the  soul  cannot  be  sep- 
arated. Eliminate  one  and  you  lose  the 
other.  No  one  went  further  than  Kant  in 
denying  the  legitimacy  of  applying  to  God 
all  the  categories  of  human  experience,  yet 
in  his  later  writings  even  he  was  compelled 
to  apply  to  God  the  attributes  of  morality  with- 
out which  God  would  cease  to  exist  for  man. 
But  what  Kant  was  constrained  to  do 

grudgingly,  we  may  now  do  lovingly  and  freely. 

109 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

Two  things,  as  we  have  already  stated,  pre- 
vent men  from  finding  the  living  God  by 
reason:  either  they  remain  obstinately  stand- 
ing in  the  world  of  finite  and  sensible  objects, 
which  itself  shades  insensibly  into  the  infinite 
and  the  spiritual,  and  refuse  to  allow  them- 
selves to  rise  to  the  height  to  which  the  soul 
so  gladly  wings  its  way;  or  else  they  cut  them- 
selves off  from  this  marvelous  and  wholesome 
world  of  fact  and  reality,  and  plunge  into  a 
labyrinth  of  abstract  conceptions  which  touch 
reality  at  no  point.  One  error  is  as  great  as  the 
other.  The  first  denies  God  altogether;  the 
second  reduces  Him  to  an  empty  abstraction, 
a  word  in  a  book.  There  is  but  one  real  and 
living  way  to  God :  that  is  through  all  reality, 
through  every  manifestation  of  spiritual  life 
in  worm  or  plant  or  animal  or  man  or  star. 
The  strange  error  of  almost  all  religious 
thought  has  been  the  opposing  of  the  finite  to 
the  Infinite  —  as  if  an  Infinite  could  exist 

with  a  finite  outside  of  it  —  instead  of  finding 

110 


MAN'S    LIFE    IN    GOD 

a  place  for  the  finite  in  the  Infinite.     We  be- 
lieve or  we  profess  to  believe  in  an  all-com- 
prehending Spirit,  but  in  a  Spirit  which  does 
not  comprehend  our  spirits  but  only  confronts 
them  externally.     This  is  the  cause  of  much 
of  the  morbid  fear  with  which  religion  has 
inspired  man,  the  fear  of  the  finite  spirit  when 
confronted  by  the  Infinite,  without  the  sense 
of  oneness  and  of  sympathy.    A  truly  infinite 
and    all-comprehending    Spirit   must   include 
within  itself  all  finite  spirits,  just  as  a  true 
eternal   life   includes   all   temporal   life.     To 
think  of  God  otherwise  is  to  rob  Him  of  all 
real  attributes.    To  speak  of  God  while  deny- 
ing Him  all  inward  connection  with  the  real 
world  is  to  speak  of  nothing,  a  mere  contra- 
diction.   No  matter  how  high  the  tower,  its 
base  must  rest  upon  the  solid  ground,  and 
the  higher  the  superstructure  the  deeper  the 
foundation.     An  infinite  space  must  include 
within  itself  all  finite  spaces.     If  the  Infinite 

has  need  of  the  finite  to  make  it  real,  not  less 

111 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

does  the  finite  need  the  Infinite,  without  which 
all  unity,  all  place,  all  association  vanish  and 
we  have  left  only  the  confused  play  of  indi- 
vidual forces.  Instead  of  a  cosmos,  a  world- 
soul,  we  have  only  a  world  of  soul  dust,  monads, 
atoms,  what  you  please.  The  God  we  are 
looking  for  is  not  a  changeless,  timeless  deity 
exalted  above  all  worlds,  filling  no  space; 
but  the  God  who  comprehends  all  time,  all 
change,  all  space  in  Himself  after  the  manner 
of  our  own  soul. 

People  speak  of  faith  as  if  it  ought  to  rest  on 
nothing,  as  if  the  less  it  rests  on  the  more 
meritorious  it  is.  That  is  the  reverse  of  the 
truth.  Faith  which  rests  on  nothing  is  pure 
superstition,  and  the  more  facts  faith  can  find 
to  rest  on  the  stronger  it  is.  The  oak  grows 
from  the  acorn,  but  it  will  not  grow  without 
the  acorn.  The  astronomer  who  lets  his  eye 
range  over  the  heavens  by  night  sees  only  tiny 
discs  and  points  of  light  and  believes  that  the 

heavens  are  full  of  great  suns  and  stars.    Yet 

112 


MAN'S    LIFE    IN    GOD 

did  he  not  see  the  tiny  discs  and  points  of 
light  he  would  believe  the  heavens  to  be  abso- 
lutely empty.  So  man's  experience  of  the 
mind  of  God  is  necessarily  small,  smaller  by 
comparison  than  the  fixed  stars  to  the  naked 
eye,  but  it  is  only  on  account  of  these  small 
experiences  that  man  believes  in  a  God  who 
transcends  all  experience.  I  defy  any  one 
to  point  to  a  conception  of  God  which  has 
borne  religious  fruit  which  did  not  spring 
from  some  comparison  with  human  life. 

It  is  true  this  attempt  to  find  God  in  the 
experiences  of  human  life  has  been  abused. 
There  are  few  religions  which  at  some  time 
in  their  history  have  not  pictured  their  gods  in 
the  likeness  of  men  and  the  cruder  the  religion, 
the  more  grossly  anthropomorphic  are  all  its 
conceptions.  There  was  also  a  time  when 
men  looked  up  into  the  heavens  and  saw  or 
thought  they  saw  great  bulls  and  scorpions  and 
fiery  virgins.  Is  that  any  reason  why  we  should 

not  use  our  constructive  imagination  in  in- 

113 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

terpreting  what  we  see,  or  shall  we  meekly 
accept  what  the  eye  reveals  to  us  and  affirm 
that  the  heavens  contain  nothing  but  discs 
and  points  of  light  ?  Is  that  science  ?  Is  it  not 
rather  a  wise  use  of  our  imagination  that  gives 
us  science  ?  The  truth  is,  the  very  essence  of 
religion  is  man's  sense  of  spiritual  kinship 
with  God.  At  a  low  stage  of  man's  develop- 
ment, the  real  nature  of  that  relationship 
was  wofully  misunderstood.  The  child,  igno- 
rant of  all  things,  has  supposed  that  rela- 
tionship to  be  merely  physical  and  he  has 
drawn  sad  caricatures  of  his  Heavenly  Father. 
But  were  it  not  for  a  sense  of  kinship  with  God, 
the  inalienable  conviction  that  man  is  like 
God  and  may  become  more  like  Him,  he  would 
not  have  drawn  God's  portrait  at  all,  for  there 
would  be  no  such  thing  as  religion. 

It  may  be  said,  there  is  a  great  difference 
between  passing  from  one  finite  object  to 
another,  and  passing  from  the  finite  to  the 

Infinite.     The  astronomer  believes  in  worlds 

114 


MAN'S    LIFE    IN    GOD 

when  he  sees  discs  and  points  of  light.  The 
chemist  on  the  ground  of  what  he  can  see 
believes  in  the  atoms  which  he  cannot  see. 
But  to  attempt  to  pass  from  all  the  experiences 
of  man  on  earth  to  the  mind  of  the  infinite 
and  invisible  God  is  a  wholly  different  matter. 
Has  not  our  age  spoken  the  final  word  on  that 
subject  when  it  declines  to  make  that  com- 
parison, to  take  that  leap  from  the  finite  to 
the  infinite,  and  is  content  humbly  to  admit 
that  the  highest,  in  fact  the  only,  knowledge 
we  possess  of  God  is  that  He  is  incomparable 
and  unknowable,  and  that  man  is  equally  in 
absolute  ignorance  of  an  eternal  life  which 
can  never  be  conjured  out  of  threescore  years 
and  ten  ? 

In  one  sense  there  is  much  truth  on  the  side 
of  agnosticism.  When  man  compares  him- 
self with  God  the  difference  is  so  great  that  all 
our  experiences  go  for  little  or  nothing.  If 
we  cannot  know  directly  the  soul  of  our  brother, 

still  less  can  we  know  the  spirit  of  the  Most 

115 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

High.  When  we  attempt  to  imagine  an  eternal 
life  growing  and  developing  from  age  to  age 
and  from  century  to  century,  when  we  even 
try  to  imagine  ourselves  as  existing  without  a 
brain,  without  a  body,  we  find  it  for  the  most 
part  impossible.  In  both  cases  the  compari- 
son seems  to  fail,  yet  not  wholly.  Here  is  a 
straight  line  ten  feet  long,  and  here  is  a  straight 
line  infinitely  long.  It  is  true  we  might  go  on 
forever  applying  the  ten-foot  line  without 
discovering  how  long  the  infinite  line  is,  yet 
they  are  both  straight  lines.  Every  condition 
the  ten-foot  line  must  obey  in  order  to  be  a 
straight  line,  the  infinite  line  also  must  obey. 
In  that  respect  we  know  it.  And  can  any  one 
study  this  universe  without  discovering  it  to 
be  full  of  intelligence  and  reason  ?  If  so, 
where  do  the  mathematics,  physics,  and  me- 
chanics we  deduce  from  the  universe  come 
from  ?  But  a  being  possessing  intellect  is  a 
spirit.  God  is  a  spirit.  Infinitely  as  He  tran- 
scends us  He  cannot  be  anything  but  a  spirit, 

116 


MAN'S   LIFE   IN    GOD 

and  the  more  man's  spiritual  nature  develops 
and  the  better  he  understands  the  relation  of 
his  soul  and  body,  the  more  he  will  understand 
the  mind  of  God  and  God's  relation  to  the 
universe.  Every  straight  line  is  part  of  an 
infinite  straight  line.  Every  moment  of  time 
part  of  infinite  time,  every  finite  space  part 
of  infinite  space,  every  body  is  part  of  the  un- 
ending universe,  every  soul  part  of  the  infinite 
unity  of  all  souls,  every  temporal  life  a  wave 
of  eternal  life,  every  human  liberty  part  of 
God's  infinite  liberty,  and  not  the  less  liberty 
on  that  account. 

As  a  spirit,  God  has  a  relation  to  the  ma- 
terial universe,  but  what  that  relation  is  we  can 
learn  only  through  the  relation  of  our  soul  to 
our  body.  God  does  not  draw  the  world  after 
Him  like  a  horse.  He  does  not  push  it  before 
Him  like  a  perambulator.  He  is  in  it  as  the 
soul  is  in  the  body.  God  as  a  spirit  also  has 
relations  with  other  spirits.  If  He  is  indeed 

the  one  infinite,  all-comprehending  Spirit,  they 

117 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

cannot  exist  outside  Him  and  independent  of 
Him.  This  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  and 
it  would  lead  to  the  recognition  of  a  plurality 
of  divine  beings,  none  of  which  could  be  called 
infinite.  The  one  true  God  can  endure  no 
other  God  beside  Him.  He  does,  however, 
include  all  spiritual  life  within  Him.  This 
then  is  the  conception  I  propose  to  sincere 
seekers  after  God,  to  those  who  are  unsatisfied 
with  a  mere  judge,  an  absentee  deity,  a  Being 
throned  above  the  stars  in  timeless,  changeless 
idleness;  and  who  desire  a  real  and  working 
God  who  is  present  in  this  world  as  the  soul  is 
present  in  the  body,  a  God  with  whom  we  can 
commune  as  thoughts  commune  with  the  mind, 
as  spirit  speaks  to  spirit,  a  God  who  can  feel 
our  sorrows  and  temptations  as  His  own,  a 
God  who  is  Himself  seriously  concerned  with 
the  problem  of  evil,  in  whom  we  are  all  united 
by  the  law  of  association,  and  in  whom  we 
can  look  confidently  forward  to  life  beyond 

death,  to  final  perfection  and  deliverance. 

118 


MAN'S    LIFE    IN    GOD 

Just  because  this  conception  is  so  vital,  so 
practical,  so  tremendous,  the  difficulties  in  the 
way  to  accepting  it  appear  very  formidable; 
yet  they  are  only  apparent.  You  say,  "  I  do 
desire  to  feel  and  realize  my  relations  to  God 
more  deeply.  I  do  desire  a  nearer  walk  with 
Him,  and  to  be  more  conscious  of  His  spirit 
in  my  heart,  but  I  do  not  desire  to  be  lost  in 
Him,  to  give  up  my  own  individual  life,  my 
personal  responsibility."  Do  not  press  this 
objection  too  far.  You  do  indeed  desire  to 
preserve  your  freedom,  your  individuality, 
your  responsibility,  and  this  view  of  God  and 
of  your  life  in  God  preserves  them  to  the  utter- 
most, while  most  other  views  sacrifice  them. 
But  you  do  not  desire  to  stand  alone,  un- 
touched by  spiritual  influence  from  God  and 
other  spiritual  beings.  You  do  not  care  to  be 
an  atom  moved  only  externally  or  a  monad 
without  a  window.  To  enter  deeply  the  soul 
of  another  is  not  to  lose  our  own  soul,  it  is 

to  find  it.    To  lose  ourselves  completely  in  the 

119 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

life  of  humanity  is  not  to  be  deprived  of  our 
own  personality,  it  is  to  gain  a  greater  and 
higher  personality.  To  realize  to  the  utmost 
our  life  in  God  is  simply  to  realize  God  in  our 
life.  If  we  are  in  God  we  are  in  God  as  parts 
of  His  spiritual  nature.  God's  mind  is  firm; 
His  thoughts  do  not  merge  and  mix  together. 
He  never  thinks  the  same  thought  twice. 
Your  individuality  is  inviolable.  You  will 
not  be  absorbed  in  God,  any  more  than  your 
thoughts  are  absorbed  in  the  mind  that 
thinks  them. 

Der  Geist  des  Menschen  fiihlt  sich  vollig  zweierlei; 

Abhangig  ganz  und  gar,  und  unabhangig  frei. 
Abhangig,  insofern  er  Gott  im  Auge  halt, 

Und  unabhangig,  wo  er  vor  sich  hat  die  Welt. 
Vorm  Vater  unfrei  fiihlt  sich  so  ein  Sohn  vom  Hans, 

Selbstandig  aber  wohl,  sobald  er  tritt  hinaus.1 

Leibniz  found  satisfaction  in  the  thought 
that  our  souls  are  monads  able  to  reflect 
externally  the  light  from  God  .that  falls  on  them 

,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  II,  s.  47. 

120 


MAN'S    LIFE    IN    GOD 

though  it  cannot  penetrate  them.  But  how 
much  more  satisfaction  may  you  find  in  the 
thought  that  God  lives  and  feels  and  acts  in 
you  and  through  you,  that  you  are  bound  to 
Him  by  every  fiber  of  your  being,  and  not 
only  to  Him,  but  to  all  the  other  hosts  of 
finite  spirits  which  constitute  His  mind, 
especially  to  those  who  are  bound  to  you 
through  laws  of  association.  But  in  all  this  you 
say,  * '  What  becomes  of  my  freedom  ?  "  It  is  pre- 
served as  no  other  religious  philosophy  is  able  to 
preserve  it.  From  this  point  of  view  the  old 
antagonism  between  God's  freedom  and  man's 
freedom  almost  disappears.  If  you  exist  in- 
dependently as  a  thing  apart  from  God,  and 
God's  will  is  absolute  and  unfettered,  it  is 
hard  to  see  what  place  is  left  for  human  free- 
dom. But  if  you  are  in  God  and  your  soul 
and  will  part  of  God's  spiritual  nature,  your 
freedom  is  simply  part  of  God's  universal 
freedom  which  you  employ  and  enjoy  in  Him 

and  under  Him.    Nor  is  it  necessary  to  suppose 

121 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

that  the  unchanging  laws  of  Nature  impose 
fetters  on  the  freedom  of  God,  since  our  bodies 
are  governed  by  equally  inflexible  laws  which 
we  employ  to  fulfil  our  purposes.  Neither 
do  the  laws  of  Nature  fetter  God;  they  are 
the  means  by  which  He  attains  His  pur- 
poses. His  habits  are  inflexible  only  because 
to  a  perfect  being  there  is  only  one  perfect 
way. 

The  great  problems  of  evil  and  of  immor- 
tality from  this  point  of  view  acquire  a  new 
meaning,  a  new  hope  of  solution.  The  prob- 
lem of  evil  first  becomes  rational  when  we 
understand  that  it  is  primarily  God's  problem. 
God  does  not  stand  apart  as  an  idle  spectator, 
a  judge  of  this  the  supreme  struggle  of  the 
universe.  He  engages  in  it  Himself,  through 
His  most  holy  will,  through  His  finite  spirits 
and  through  the  moral  laws  by  which  this  world 
is  governed.  This  tells  me  precisely  the  thing 
which  I  wish  most  to  know :  that  my  struggle 

for  purity  and  enlightenment  and  perfection 

122 


MAN'S   LIFE   IN   GOD 

does  not  depend  on  myself  alone.  By  myself, 
weighted  with  the  burden  of  the  flesh  and  a 
thousand  infirmities  of  spirit,  surrounded  by 
doubts,  pitfalls,  aged  and  crafty  foes,  what  can 
my  feeble  strength  avail?  Apart  from  the 
knowledge  that  God  will  leave  no  thought  of 
His,  no  part  of  His  Nature  unpacified  and 
imperfect,  what  hope  have  I  of  redemption? 
If  my  life  is  simply  in  itself  or  bound  to  this 
perishing  organism,  what  hope  have  I  beyond 
the  grave  ?  If  my  soul  has  only  this  bare 
physical  universe  to  run  to  after  death,  it 
will  not  run  far.  But  if  my  life  is  in  God, 
in  God  I  shall  find  it  in  a  higher  form.  I 
know  that  the  impressions  of  my  senses  soon 
disappear  and  are  extinguished,  but  that  they 
reappear  in  a  higher  and  more  permanent 
form  in  thoughts  and  memories.  So  God 
sends  us  forth  during  the  brief  day  of  life  to 
gather  experience  for  Him.  He  sees  the  world 
through  our  eyes  and  hears  its  manifold  sounds 

through  our  ears.    But  when  we  have  gathered 

123 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

enough  for  Him,  He  calls  us  home,  calls  us 
now  to  a  higher  plane  of  His  being  to  take  our 
place  among  His  permanent  memories  and 
invisibly  to  work  on.  Now  the  physical  body 
may  be  dissolved  as  our  sense  impressions  are 
dissolved  only  to  liberate  the  higher  life.  At 
death  God  says  to  us,  "Friend,  come  up 
higher."  If  I  live  in  the  mind  and  memory 
of  God,  I  do  not  fear  that  I  shall  perish. 
Man  forgets  much,  the  animals  forget  more; 
the  plants  remember  hardly  anything;  God 
forgets  nothing. 

Lastly,  this  view  affords  a  good  philosophy, 
the  only  real  philosophy  of  prayer.  If  man 
lives  in  God,  and  God  constantly  speaks  to 
him,  how  unnatural,  how  monstrous  that  man 
should  never  turn  his  face  to  the  source  of  his 
life  and  speak  to  God.  What  deters  many 
a  good  man  from  praying  is  the  difficulty  of 
understanding  how  his  prayer  enters  into  the 
ear  of  God  or  what  effect  it  can  have  upon  the 

ordering  of  his  life   inward  or  outward.     If 

124 


MAN'S    LIFE    IN    GOD 

this  world  is  a  vast  machine,  complete  in  every 
part,  which  God  merely  made  and  set  in 
motion,  it  is  difficult  to  see  how  prayer  can 
affect  it  in  the  slightest  degree.  The  world 
seems  like  a  machine  to  you  because  you  well 
understand  its  mechanical  laws,  whereas  you 
know  little  or  nothing  of  its  spiritual  laws. 
But  so  your  body  is  a  machine;  yet  it  is  moved, 
nourished,  supported,  and  controlled  by  your 
soul,  and  only  as  long  as  there  is  a  soul  within 
it  does  it  hold  together.  It  makes  no  difference 
whether  you  regard  your  soul  as  the  uniting 
principle  or  as  the  product  of  all  the  forces  of 
your  body,  the  fact  is  the  same .  So  this  universe 
is  moved,  sustained,  nourished,  and  controlled 
by  the  spirit  of  God,  and  only  while  there  is 
such  a  spirit  within  it  does  it  exist  at  all.  But 
one  of  those  forces  is  you,  and  you  are  not  alone, 
but  by  spiritual  law  you  are  bound  to  the  Soul 
that  animates  all.  So  when  you  in  prayer 
gather  up  your  soul  in  a  strong  desire  toward 

God,  that  prayer  enters  into  God's  conscious- 

125 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

ness  and  becomes  one  of  His  determining 
motives,  and  if  it  is  good,  it  is  likely  to  be 
acted  on.  We  do  not  dream  of  asking  God  to 
violate  His  own  laws,  the  fixed  and  eternal 
expression  of  His  will,  because  such  a  violation 
would  do  more  harm  than  good.  We  know 
as  yet  but  little  of  the  law  of  prayer,  but  we 
may  be  sure,  if  prayer  is  a  real  force  in  this 
universe,  that  it  has  its  laws  which  must  be 
obeyed  if  its  blessings  would  be  obtained.  The 
highest  things  we  can  pray  for,  peace  and 
reconciliation  and  forgiveness,  are  always 
given  us  if  we  pray  with  faith  and  with  a  pure 
heart  fervently.  As  for  the  rest,  we  know  that 
the  oftener  we  pray  and  the  more  earnestly 
we  pray,  and  the  more  our  heart  goes  out  to 
God  in  one  definite  direction,  the  more  likely 
our  prayer  is  to  be  answered.  God  resists 
many  prayers  just  as  we  resist  or  as  we  ought 
to  resist  many  thoughts,  and  having  prayed 
faithfully  we  should  be  content,  for  the  highest 

object  of  true  prayer  is  to  bring  our  will  into 

126 


MAN'S   LIFE    IN   GOD 

harmony  with  the  will  of  God,  not  to  attempt 
to  bend  the  will  of  God  to  the  oftentimes  blind 
and  misguided  will  of  man. 

Mensch,  so  du  wissen  willst,  was  redlich  beten  heisst, 
So  geh*  in  dich  hinein,  und  frage  Gottes  Geist.1 

Since  God  knows  all  that  His  creatures 
know,  He  knows  also  their  faults,  their  igno- 
rance and  their  errors,  though  without  sharing 
them.  They  are  but  the  limitations  of  a  part 
which  does  not  know  the  whole,  as  the  whole 
knows  the  part.  Many  a  man  does  not  believe 
in  God,  doubts  the  very  existence  of  God, 
though  he  is  in  God.  This  does  not  mean 
that  God  does  not  believe  in  Himself,  or  that 
He  doubts  His  own  existence.  God  sees  the 
unbelief  of  men  as  well  as  their  faith,  and  He 
has  means  to  evoke  faith  and  to  destroy  un- 
belief which  He  constantly,  though  gradually, 
employs.  But  if  you  ask  why  God  does  not  at 
once  and  forever  destroy  error  and  unbelief, 

1  Angelus  Silesius. 
127 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

you  must  also  ask  why  God  does  not  at  once 
destroy  all  evil  generally.  In  other  words, 
our  next  problem  is  the  Goodness  of  God 
and  the  Evil  of  the  World. 


128 


Thus  saith  the  Lord  to  His  anointed,  to  Cyrus  whose 
right  hand  I  have  holden  —  I  have  even  called  thee  by  thy 
name,  I  have  surnamed  thee  though  thou  hast  not  known  me. 
I  am  the  Lord  and  there  is  none  else,  there  is  no  God  beside 
me,  I  form  the  light  and  create  darkness.  I  make  peace  and 
create  evil.  I  the  Lord  do  all  these  things. 

ISAIAH  XLV,  part  of  verses  1,  4,  5,  7. 


129 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  GOODNESS  OF  GOD  AND  THE  EVIL 
OF  THE  WORLD 

KING  CYRUS  the  Great  must  have  been 
very  much  astonished  to  hear  these  words, 
if  for  no  other  reason,  because  they  contra- 
dict the  fundamental  principle  of  his  own 
religion.  In  saying  this  I  assume  that  Cyrus 
was  a  Zoroastrian.  This  opinion,  though 
supported  by  excellent  authority,  I  am  aware 
is  open  to  question;  so  I  am  willing  to  modify 
it  to  this  extent,  and  say  that  though  Cyrus 
may  not  have  embraced  personally  the  re- 
ligion of  the  great  Zoroaster,  yet  he  could 
hardly  have  been  ignorant  of  the  principles  of 
that  religion.  The  Persian  historian  Firdusi 
tells  us  expressly  that  Cyrus  sacrificed  daily 

to  Ahura  Mazda,  the  beneficent  deity  in  whose 

131 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

name  Zoroaster  taught,  and  on  the  tomb  of 
Darius,  who  ascended  the  throne  of  Persia 
eight  years  after  Cyrus'  death,  this  inscription 
stands  written  in  the  old  Persian  characters 
to  this  day:  "What  I  did  I  did  by  the  grace 
of  Ahura  Mazda.  O  man,  the  commandment 
of  Ahura  Mazda  is,  'Think  no  evil,  forsake 
not  the  right  way,  sin  not."  Moreover,  the 
language  of  the  second  Isaiah,  who  lived  at 
the  court  of  Cyrus  and  evidently  knew  him, 
is  so  clear  and  so  pointed  as  to  leave  little  room 
for  doubt. 

Now  the  religion  of  Zoroaster  is,  that  there 
are  two  gods,  Ahura  Mazda  and  Angro 
Mainyu,  or  as  we  say,  Ormuzd  and  Ahriman, 
and  that  these  two  are  engaged  in  a  perpetual 
deadly  struggle.  Ormuzd  is  good,  Ahriman 
is  the  soul  of  evil;  Ormuzd  made  everything 
fair,  Ahriman  constantly  endeavors  to  spoil 
his  good  creation;  Ormuzd  made  the  light, 
Ahriman  the  darkness;  Ormuzd  planted 

good  grain  and  in  his  wheat  Ahriman   sows 

132 


THE    GOODNESS    OF    GOD 

his  tares;  Ormuzd  is  the  god  of  truth,  Ahri- 
man  the  father  of  lies.  Ormuzd  loves  man, 
Ahriman  hates  him,  tempts  him,  and  con- 
stantly endeavors  to  corrupt  and  destroy  him. 
Both  are  strong,  but  the  good  Ormuzd  is 
stronger;  in  the  end  he  will  triumph  and 
Ahriman  and  his  wicked  angels  and  friends 
will  be  burned  up  in  a  general  conflagration 
of  the  world. 

Without  describing  the  religion  of  Zoroaster 
further,  it  is  easy  to  see  how  deeply  it  has  im- 
pressed itself  upon  our  own  religious  thought 
and  how  closely  it  corresponds  to  our  own 
popular  conception  of  the  relation  of  God  to 
the  devil.  We  can  see  now  plainly  enough 
what  Isaiah  meant  when  he  said,  "I  am 
Jehovah  and  there  is  none  else,  there  is  no  God 
beside  me.  I  form  the  light  and  create  dark- 
ness. I  make  good  and  create  evil.  I  Jehovah 
do  all  these  things."  In  other  words,  the  old 
problem  of  evil  confronted  Isaiah  as  it  con- 
fronts us;  the  popular  solution  was  at  hand 

133 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

of  a  devil,  a  secondary  agent  who  is  responsible 
for  the  sin  and  misery  of  this  world,  and  Isaiah 
will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it ;  he  deliberately 
rejects  it,  and  declares  that  there  is  but  one 
God,  one  supreme  Creator  of  all  that  exists,  and 
that  as  He  made  all,  He  is  responsible  for  all. 

It  is  a  comfort  to  know  that  this  battle  has 
been  fought  before  us,  and  that  this  position 
was  taken  five  hundred  years  before  Christ 
by  one  of  the  most  profound  thinkers  and 
inspired  writers  that  the  old  religion  of  Israel 
ever  produced.  It  comforts  me,  because  if 
Isaiah  fearlessly  and  unhesitatingly  adopted 
this  position,  it  cannot  be  an  irreligious  posi- 
tion, and  whatever  doubts  and  misgivings  it 
exposes  us  to,  in  the  end  it  will  be  found  to 
vindicate  the  honor  of  God.  At  all  events  it 
is  the  position  to  which  thinking  men  the  world 
over  are  being  rapidly  led  or  driven,  often 
against  their  will. 

Up  to  comparatively  a  few  years  past  the 

orthodox  religious  view  upon  this  subject  was 

134 


THE    GOODNESS    OF    GOD 

a  very  simple  one.  Not  more  than  six  or  seven 
thousand  years  ago,  a  perfectly  good,  an 
absolutely  wise  and  omnipotent  God  made 
the  world,  finished,  complete,  and  perfect  in 
every  respect,  and  in  it  placed  a  perfect 
humanity,  but  the  devil  soon  entered  in  and 
spoiled  everything.  Although  there  is  much 
that  is  childish  in  this  view,  there  is  no  doubt 
that  it  must  satisfy  some  need  of  the  human 
mind  from  the  wonderful  tenacity  with  which 
it  has  been  able  to  maintain  itself  in  the  face 
of  all  evidence  down  to  the  present  day.  Even 
now  its  power  is  unshaken  over  minds  that  lie 
outside  the  charmed  circle  of  modern  science 
and  philosophy.  There  is  no  doubt  that  to 
many  minds  it  offers  a  satisfactory  explanation 
of  certain  profound  difficulties  which  confront 
us  every  day  and  which  otherwise  seem  with- 
out an  explanation.  It  is  true  its  God  is  neither 
infinite  nor  omnipotent,  since  otherwise  why 
should  he  be  so  hampered  by  the  Devil,  but 

on  the  other  hand  it  leaves  men  free  to  believe 

135 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

in  the  absolute  goodness  of  God,  and  that,  after 
all,  is  the  main  thing  in  religion.  Between  the 
omnipotence  and  the  absolute  goodness  of  the 
Creator,  it  is  far  more  important  for  us  to  be- 
lieve in  His  goodness  than  in  His  omnipotence. 
But  fortunately,  or  unfortunately,  it  is  not 
always  possible  for  us  to  believe  those  things 
wrhich  we  would  most  like  to  believe.  If  our 
belief  is  honest  and  worth  the  name,  it  will  be 
determined  at  last  by  truth  and  probability. 
In  other  words,  our  attitude  toward  what  we 
do  not  know  will  be  determined  by  what  we 
do  know.  Now  the  immense  exploration  of 
Nature  that  has  taken  place  during  the  past 
century,  those  brilliant  and  solid  discoveries 
as  to  whose  significance  all  minds  competent 
to  judge  are  agreed,  have  established  the 
unity  of  the  Godhead  on  an  irrefutable  basis, 
but  often  apparently  at  the  expense  of  God's 
goodness  and  His  wisdom.  I  do  not  put  this 
forward  as  my  own  opinion.  I  hope,  if  God 

gives  me  strength,  to  express  myself  differently. 

136 


THE    GOODNESS    OF   GOD 

But  I  am  sure  this  is  the  effect  that  immersion 
in  physical  and  evolutionary  studies  and 
familiarity  with  countless  new  truths  in  regard 
to  the  world  have  had  on  an  immense  number 
of  religious  minds.  Whether  science  can 
establish  monotheism  or  not,  it  is  the  only 
form  of  theism  to  which  it  lends  the  least 
countenance.  The  visible  universe  is  com- 
posed of  the  same  elements  undergoing  the 
same  slow  processes  of  change.  The  law  that 
presides  over  the  formation  of  a  sun  compels 
the  formation  of  a  dew  drop.  Light,  heat, 
gravity,  electricity  are  apparently  as  boundless 
and  as  universal  in  their  action  as  space  itself. 
And  those  great  forces  go  straight  to  their 
end,  utterly  regardless  of  whom  or  what  they 
may  crush  by  the  way.  The  wind  that  wrecks 
an  Apostle  wafts  a  pirate  on  his  course  (John 
Stuart  Mill).  The  power  that  upholds  the 
stars  throws  a  child  on  the  fire  and  holds  it 
there  while  it  is  slowly  consumed.  Not  only 

have  those  laws  no  special  clause  for  man, 

137 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

but  some  of  them  appear  to  be  framed  almost 
expressly  to  afflict  and  destroy  us.  Diseases 
have  their  laws  no  less  complicated  and  marvel- 
ous in  their  adaptation  of  means  to  an  end 
than  the  laws  of  health.  Many  of  them  are 
caused  by  the  natural  propagation  of  living 
organisms  which  appear  to  have  been  created 
expressly  to  prey  on  nobler  beings  than  them- 
selves and  whose  motive  in  the  struggle  for 
existence  is  exactly  the  same  as  our  own. 
In  a  word,  the  world  was  not  created  perfect, 
but  utterly  imperfect.  If  we  would  seek  for 
the  origin  of  life,  we  must  seek  for  it  in  some 
humble  organism  consisting  of  only  a  few 
cells,  but  endowed  with  a  marvelous  power 
of  reproduction  and  of  slow  self-improvement 
by  means  of  natural  selection  —  that  is  to  say, 
the  killing  off  of  the  weaker,  and  allowing  only 
the  strong  and  successful  to  propagate  them- 
selves. Man  did  not  enter  this  world  from 
above  as  was  formerly  pretended,  but  as  a 

child  of  the  dust  he  struggled  upward. 

138 


THE   GOODNESS    OF   GOD 

I  need  not  go  on  with  this  description,  for 
the  reader  can  fill  in  the  details  as  well  as  I 
can.     But  what  is  the  result  of  this  new  con- 
ception of  the  world  as  far  as  our  religious 
life  is  concerned  ?    In  the  first  place  our  idea 
of  the  Almightiness  of  God  has  been  won- 
derfully broadened  and  deepened.    We  find 
that  God,  instead  of  making  the  world  as  a 
watchmaker  might  make  a  watch,  is  making 
it  now,  that  the  making  of  this  world  has  been 
a  far  more  difficult  process  than  we  imagined, 
that  God  is  in  the  world  and  not  outside  of  it, 
that  Nature  is  not  dead  but  living,  that  as 
far  as  we  can  see  to-day  there  is  no  intei1- 
ference  from  without,  either  by  miracle  or  by 
the   interference   of  a  hostile  power.     Belief 
in  the  Devil  is  vanishing  because  there  no 
longer  seems  to  be  any  place  for  the  Devil. 
Acts  formerly  ascribed  to  his  malicious  inter- 
ference are  now  seen  plainly  enough  to  be 
parts  of  the  universal  plan,  results  of  natural 

law,  necessary  shadows  on  the  great  picture 

139 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

God  is  painting,  required  by  the  laws  of  His 
art,  back  currents  in  the  great  stream  of  God's 
purpose  which  seem  to  make  against  His  tend- 
ency of  righteousness  for  a  little  while,  but  in 
the  end  the  main  current  proves  too  strong 
for  them  and  they  are  carried  with  the  rest  of 
the  world  onward  toward  the  everlasting  goal. 
Then  criticism  turns  its  search-lights  on  the 
Devil  and  explains  him  historically,  psycho- 
logically, and  every  other  way;  and  a  devil 
explained  is  a  devil  dead.  So  at  last  only  two 
things  are  left,  a  God  of  enormous  power 
and  incalculable  wisdom,  and  the  evil  of  the 
world,  the  ferocity  of  nature,  the  recklessness 
with  which  death  marks  out  his  victims,  the 
sufferings  of  animals,  the  sufferings  and  the 
degradation  of  man,  all  the  violence  and  out- 
rage, the  savage  wars  and  black  superstition, 
the  pestilence  and  famine,  the  slavery  and  tyr- 
anny, the  vile  instincts  and  impulses  that  have 
dogged  our  footsteps  from  the  very  first  and 
that  dog  them  still.  (See  Evil  and  Evolution.) 

140 


THE    GOODNESS    OF    GOD 

There  is  the  real  scandal  of  religion  to-day. 
Speculative  difficulties  we  might  get  around 
or  ignore,  but  not  this  practical  difficulty. 
In  this  terrible  network  of  evil  and  cruelty  we 
call  Nature,  what  has  become  of  the  good  God  ? 
And  goodness  is  all  we  require.  A  powerful 
God  we  may  fear,  a  wise  God  we  may  admire, 
but  a  God  who  is  not  good  we  can  neither  love 
nor  adore.  That  is  one  reason  why  so  many 
thoughtful  men  to-day  are  destitute  of  religion. 
It  is  not  that  they  wish  to  be  irreligious.  They 
are  not  those  branded  souls  that  affect  to  be 
clever  and  laugh  at  all  sacred  things,  --  base 
and  terrestrial  spirits,  jaundiced  by  egotism 
and  doomed  to  perish  of  their  own  nothingness. 
They  are  rather  like  men,  sadly  walking  around 
their  father's  house  at  night,  and  afraid  to 
enter  lest  they  should  find  a  blood-stained 
monster  seated  in  their  father's  chair,  afraid 
to  look  up  to  the  kind  eye  of  their  Father  in 
Heaven,  lest  only  the  orb  of  the  Infinite, 

blind   and   empty,   smite   upon   their  glance. 

141 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

Stone  by  stone,  they  have  seen  their  temple 
of  God  crumble  away.  In  place  of  the  altar 
of  the  Crucified,  bright  with  the  flowers  of 
His  resurrection,  rises  an  altar  of  brass,  drip- 
ping with  the  blood  of  countless  victims, 
against  which  all  prayer  shatters  itself  in 
vain.1  That  is  the  problem  that  confronts  us, 
and  if  I  can  say  one  honest  and  reassuring 
word  to  these  men  and  women  whose  pain  I 
know  full  well,  I  shall  be  content. 

Let  us  then  look  our  difficulties  squarely  in 
the  face.  The  evil  is  there,  and  we  cannot 
deny  it.  At  the  same  time,  there  is  no  need 
of  exaggerating  it.  That  is  the  trouble  with  all 
pessimists.  Their  arraignment  of  God  is  too 
passionate.  Any  one  who  has  studied  animal 
life  in  a  state  of  nature  knows  that,  on  the 
whole,  it  is  a  very  happy  life,  untroubled  by  the 
thought  of  death,  and  that  death,  when  it 
comes,  is  usually  swift  and  attended  by  little 


1 1  think  these  words  echo  a  passage  of  Kenan's,  but  I  cannot 
remember  where  it  occurs. 

142 


THE    GOODNESS    OF    GOD 

pain.  Yet  I  admit  that  the  problem  of  animal 
pain  is  the  most  incomprehensible  of  all  God's 
secrets.  In  spite  of  the  terrible  pictures  drawn 
by  evolutionists,  vital  statistics  and  life  in- 
surance companies  know  nothing  of  the 
struggle  for  existence  and  the  survival  of  the 
fittest.  In  this  country,  at  all  events,  we  hardly 
know  the  meaning  of  the  expression  "struggle 
for  existence."  What  we  call  the  struggle  for 
existence  is  usually  only  the  struggle  for  com- 
fort and  luxury.  I  have  examined  with  care 
the  tables  of  vital  statistics  of  two  great 
nations,  and  I  find  that  people  die  of  about 
the  same  diseases  they  died  of  before  Darwin's 
law  was  discovered,  and  that  those  diseases 
are,  for  the  most  part,  no  respecters  of  persons, 
striking  high  and  low,  rich  and  poor  alike, 
and  that  the  average  man  lives  long  enough 
to  marry  and  leave  children  behind  him  if  he 
cares  to  do  so. 

But  after  all,  this  is  not  a  question  of  more 

or  less.    The  evil  is  there,  and  we  cannot  deny 

143 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

it.     Let  us  grapple  with  the  problem  if  we 
cannot  solve  it.     But  it  is  a  hard  problem  - 
too  hard  as  yet  for  the  world. 

I  reverently  submit  these  two  propositions: — 

1.  If  God  created  the  pain  and  sin  of  man 
by  His  own  deliberate  will  and  choice,  because 
it  pleased  Him,  He  is  an  evil  Deity.     That 
was  the   contention   of  Abraham,  "Shall  not 
the  Judge  of  all  the  earth  do  right  ?  " 

2.  If  God  has  permitted  the  evil  He  might 
have  prevented,  He  is  a  lazy  Deity.     Strange 
to  say,  this  is  the  view  commonly  taken  in  the 
Old  Testament.     Jehovah  is  good;    He  loves 
justice,  but  He  is  almost  always  asleep.    That 
is  the  reason  why  wickedness  flourishes  unre- 
buked.    Accordingly  the  Psalms  and  Prophe- 
cies resound  with  calls  to  God  to  wake  up. 
"Their  priests  fell  by  the  sword,  their  widows 
made  no  lamentation.    Then  Jehovah  awaked 
as  one  out  of  sleep."     "Yea,  for  thy  sake  we 
are  killed  all  the  day  long,  we  are  counted  as 

sheep  for  the  slaughter.    Awake,  why  sleepest 

144 


THE    GOODNESS    OF    GOD 

thou,  O  Lord  ?"  "Arise,  O  God,  plead  thine 
own  cause.  Remember  how  the  foolish  man 
reproacheth  thee  daily." 

In  the  first  place,  then,  I  am  sure  evil  did  not 
come  into  the  world  by  the  will  of  God  because 
He  loves  it,  for  I  see  His  will  everywhere 
exerted  against  that  evil  to  heal  and  correct 
it,  and  when  that  is  impossible,  to  crush  and 
annihilate  it.  Neither  do  I  think  it  necessary 
to  prove  to  the  reader,  acquainted  with  the 
facts  of  modern  science,  that  He  is  not  a 
sleepy  or  a  weak  God.  But  still  the  evil  is 
there,  and  still  I  have  not  said  a  word  as  to 
how  it  came  there. 

Does  everything  then  that  takes  place 
in  our  soul  take  place  by  our  will  ?  Do  not 
innumerable  thoughts,  feelings,  passions  arise 
in  us  without  our  will  from  the  depths  of  our 
unconscious  nature  or  from  our  lower  instincts, 
for  which  we  are  not  responsible  ?  Is  not  my 
will  only  the  highest  ruler  of  my  soul  that 

strives,   not  always   successfully,   toward   one 

145 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

common  goal,  the  ideal  of  my  life,  that  per- 
petually struggles  to  create  harmony  and  peace 

between  knowledge  and  faith,  between  think- 

\ 

ing  and  doing,  and  that  constantly  turns 
and  changes  and  chastises  all  that  will  not 
yield  to  this  supreme  necessity  of  my  nature, 
until  it  has  yielded  and  become  a  consistent 
part  of  my  life  purpose  ?  And  is  it  otherwise 
with  God  ?  Men  have  been  so  carried  away 
with  the  great  thought  that  God  is  everywhere, 
equally  operative  in  dead  matter,  vegetable 
life,  animal  life,  and  human  life,  that  they 
have  forgotten  that  here  also  there  is  a  higher 
and  a  lower.  When  they  speak  of  God  as 
present  in  the  dust  of  our  streets  and  in  our  high 
buildings,  there  is  a  sense  in  which  these 
words  are  true.  From  the  moral  point  of 
view  such  language  is  confounding  and  mis- 
leading. There  is  all  the  difference  in  the 
world  between  God's  presence  in  a  worm  and 
His  presence  in  a  godlike  man.  All  that  hap- 
pens is  not  equally  the  expression  of  the  will 

146 


THE    GOODNESS    OF    GOD 

of  God.  There  must  be  something  outside 
the  will  of  God  on  which  that  will  can  exert 
itself,  otherwise  it  could  not  act  at  all,  any 
more  than  the  lever  can  act  without  the 
fulcrum.  Yes,  are  we  not  compelled  to  believe 
that  in  God  too  there  is  a  Supreme  Will, 
which  is  not  the  whole  but  only  the  highest, 
the  leader  and  guide  which  strives  to  draw 
everything  along  to  the  great  universal  goal, 
to  create  peace  and  harmony  between  all 
knowledge  and  faith,  between  all  thought  and 
action,  however  much  individual  elements 
may  resist,  and  which  turns  and  changes  and 
chastises  all  that  will  not  yield  itself  to  His 
supreme  purpose,  until  at  last  it  does  yield? 
We  do  not  hold  a  man  accountable  for  all 
the  thoughts  and  passions  and  impulses  that 
arise  from  the  obscure  depths  of  his  conscious- 
ness or  unconsciousness,  but  only  for  the  atti- 
tude of  his  supreme  will,  the  vigor  with  which 
he  compels  all  these  thoughts  and  passions 

and  impulses  to  serve  the  general  aim  of  his 

147 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

life,  the  good  as  he  sees  it.  When  the  evil 
which  arises  in  his  consciousness  is  to  him  only 
a  motive  of  good,  a  thing  to  be  suppressed 
and  checked  and  made  to  serve  the  purpose  of 
righteousness,  that  man  is  surely  a  good  man, 
not  a  bad  man.  The  greater  the  struggle,  the 
holier  he  is  in  our  eyes.  And  so  we  call  God 
good  in  spite  of  all  the  individual  forms  of  evil 
that  arise  in  this  world,  if  His  supreme  will 
is  not  the  creator  of  that  evil,  but  the  healer 
and  physician  of  that  evil,  if  the  longer  and  the 
further  we  follow  the  course  of  the  world 
through  time  and  space,  the  more  purpose 
it  manifests,  the  more  the  lower  yields  to  the 
higher  so  that  that  which  at  first  and  near  by 
and  in  particular  instances  seemed  to  us 
all  evil,  turns  out  to  be  the  temporal  condition 
of  eternal  good. 

Is  the  origin  of  evil  here  explained  ?  It  is 
not,  because  it  is  impossible  for  man  to  ex- 
plain any  origin  whatever.  That  mystery 

lies  concealed  in  the  depths  into  which  the  eye 

148 


THE    GOODNESS    OF    GOD 

of  the  creature  may  not  penetrate.  In  the 
mythologies  of  all  nations,  the  Devil  has  no 
father;  that  is  to  say,  the  origin  of  radical 
evil  is  incomprehensible  to  man.  We  can 
build  our  explanations  up  to  the  skies,  but 
above  every  explanation  there  towers  a  gigantic 
question  mark.  I  offer  here  a  thought  that 
seems  to  me  to  throw  as  much  light  as  any 
other  on  this  supreme  mystery.  A  good  will 
makes  a  good  man,  and  yet  the  will  is  not  the 
whole  man  and  neither  is  it  the  whole  God. 
For  that  will  to  act  at  all,  there  must  be  some- 
thing outside  itself  that  is  not  itself  on  which 
it  can  act.  We  know  how  true  that  is  of  us. 
It  is  only  by  resistance  and  struggle  and  temp- 
tation and  the  knowledge  of  evil  that  we  become 
spiritual  beings  and  attain  to  liberty  and  peace. 
According  to  Kant's  beautiful  image,  the  light 
dove  winging  her  way  across  the  heaven  might 
think  that  were  it  not  for  the  heavy,  impeding 
atmosphere  she  could  rise  higher  and  fly  more 

swiftly,  but  in  reality  it  is  only  the  resistance 

149 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

of  the  atmosphere  which  enables  her  to  rise 
at  all.  In  a  vacuum  our  poor  dove  would 
collapse  into  a  handful  of  dead  feathers.  What 
this  power  is,  that  resists  the  will  of  God, 
whether  it  is  spiritual,  within  Him  or  without 
Him,  or  whether  it  is  lodged  in  the  dull  in- 
tractable nature  of  a  matter  He  did  not  create, 
that  question  each  one  must  answer  for  him- 
self in  accordance  with  his  ideas  of  what  is 
possible.  For  my  part,  I  will  never  laugh  at 
anyone  for  clinging  to  the  Devil,  for  fear  that 
while  I  am  laughing  the  Devil  may  be  clinging 
to  me. 

Is  then  God  unhappy?  Does  He  feel  the 
pangs  of  all  His  creatures  ?  Are  their  agony 
and  shame  and  loss  His  shame  and  loss  and 
agony  ?  He  does  indeed  feel  all ;  He  suffers 
all.  "In  all  their  affliction  He  was  afflicted, 
and  the  angel  of  His  presence  saved  them." 
And  yet,  when  our  soul  is  lost  and  overwhelmed 
in  the  night  of  sin  and  suffering  His  soul  is  not 
overwhelmed.  To  Him  that  night  of  ours  is 

150 


THE    GOODNESS    OF    GOD 

but  a  necessary  shadow  on  His  great  picture. 
He  knows  that  He  possesses  the  balm  to  heal 
that  soul,  to  cleanse  it,  to  save  it,  to  present  it 
at  last  without  spot  before  Him,  whether  here 
or  there  makes  little  difference,  and  that  fills 
Him  with  joy. 

He  who  has  once  firmly  grasped  this  con- 
ception of  God  will  find  in  the  thought  of  God 
even  in  his  bitterest  suffering  a  consolation 
stronger  than  all  his  needs.  It  must  be  better 
with  you  since  God  lives;  God  lives  in  you 
and  you  live  in  God.  God  does  not  regard 
your  sufferings  and  temptations  with  indiffer- 
ence as  something  external  and  outside  Him- 
self. He  experiences  them  in  you.  He  suffers 
with  you.  Above  all  your  strength  and  means 
for  removing  your  anguish  He  has  greater 
strength  and  better  means  which  He  inces- 
santly employs.  Over  your  little  efforts,  over 
your  Kttle  hands  below,  He  stretches  His 
mightier  hand  above.  God  is  not  tired  when 

you  are  tired,  and  yet  He  does  not  hasten 

151 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

when  you  are  in  haste.  Were  His  life  as  short 
as  yours,  or  were  this  life  your  only  life,  then 
He  would  hasten.  But  the  eternal  God  can 
wait,  and  He  knows  why  He  waits.  The 
longer  the  hunger,  the  sweeter  the  satisfaction ; 
the  harder  the  labor  the  greater  the  strength; 
the  longer  you  resist  the  evil,  the  greater  the 
reward  of  evil  resisted  to  your  own  soul. 
God  lives,  and  He  does  not  live  in  vain. 
What  seems  in  vain  here  will  not  seem  vain 
there.  When  the  sufferings  of  this  life  become 
too  great  to  be  borne,  life  itself  takes  a  new 
turn,  and  straightway  all  those  sufferings  are 
converted  into  joy.  Therefore  be  patient  a 
little  longer. 


152 


In  Gott  ruht  meine  Seele. 
Der  selber  siindigt  nicht, 
Tragt  doch  mit  seinem  Kinde 
In  sich  auch  dessen  Siinde, 
Fuhrt  es  zuletzt  zur  Pflicht. 


153 


CHAPTER  VIII 

ON   GOOD   AND    EVIL 

IF  God  is  the  cause  of  all  things,  then,  as 
Isaiah  did  not  hesitate  to  say,  He  is  the  cause 
of  evil  also.  The  problem  therefore  is,  how  is 
the  existence  of  evil  in  this  world  compatible 
with  the  goodness  of  God  ?  Why  do  men 
cling,  in  belief  at  least,  so  earnestly  to  the 
Devil  ?  Doubtless  because  he  seems  to  them 
to  afford  an  easy  and  practical  solution  to  this 
difficulty.  But  does  he  really  ?  That  depends 
on  whether  we  believe  that  the  Devil  is  God's 
creature  or  God's  equal.  If  the  former,  God 
is  responsible  for  the  work  of  His  hands; 
neither  is  it  easy  to  see  how  the  Creator  could 
bestow  upon  His  creature  moral  qualities  He 
Himself  did  not  possess.  All  serious  writers 

on  this  subject  have  perceived  this  difficulty. 

155 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

Hence  they  have  removed  the  difficulty  one 
step  by  affirming  that  even  Satan  was  created 
good,  but  fell  through  the  exercise  of  his  free 
will.  Now,  with  this  view  I  have  no  quarrel, 
except  that  I  do  not  find  such  convincing  proofs 
of  the  existence  of  Satan  as  some  persons  do; 
and  as  I  am  aware  that  belief  in  the  Prince  of 
Darkness,  except  in  the  figurative  sense  of 
Goethe's  Mephistopheles,  is  rapidly  disappear- 
ing from  the  portion  of  mankind  that  thinks. 
It  may  be  said  that  Jesus  believed  in  the  Devil. 
It  is  true  the  synoptic  Gospels  represent  him 
as  adapting  his  language  to  the  convictions 
of  his  times,  as  curing  his  patients  by  treating 
the  diseases  they  believed  themselves  suffering 
from.  How  far  our  blessed  Saviour  himself 
personally  shared  those  views  it  is  hard  to  say. 
St.  John,  however,  the  evangelist  who  best 
understood  the  mind  of  Christ,  rejects  all 
those  popular  superstitions  which  ascribed 
various  forms  of  disease  to  the  influence  of  the 

Devil,  and  admits  no  story  of  Satanic  tempta- 

156 


ON    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

tion,  nor  a  single  case  of  demoniacal  pos- 
session, into  his  Gospel.  I  repeat,  however,  I 
have  no  quarrel  with  those  who  still  believe 
in  the  Devil  as  the  creature  of  God,  although 
such  a  belief  gives  them  not  the  slightest  help 
in  solving  the  problem  of  evil.  My  only 
quarrel  is  with  those  who  practically  believe 
in  the  Devil  as  another  God,  a  responsible 
being  to  whom  the  evil  of  the  world  can  be 
referred.  And  I  object  to  their  doctrine  be- 
cause I  am  a  monotheist,  a  Christian,  a  believer 
in  the  Bible,  not  a  Zoroastrian.  The  Nicene 
creed  and  every  creed  in  Christendom  teach 
us  to  say  *  I  believe  in  one  God '  -  not,  *  I 
believe  in  God  and  the  Devil.'  I  look  on  evil, 
therefore,  as  a  possibility  present  in  the  very 
nature  of  things,  as  something  unavoidable, 
rooted  in  the  nature  of  God  as  all  things  are 
there  rooted,  yet  forming  no  part  of  the  abso- 
lutely holy  will  of  God,  but  forming,  rather, 
the  fulcrum  of  resistance  on  which  that  holy 

will  can  act.    With  these  words  of  preface,  let 

157 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

us  pass  to  a  more  general  consideration  of  good 
and  evil. 

For  all  men  alike  the  darkest  question  of  the 
universe  is  and  remains  -  -  Whence  comes 
the  evil  of  the  world,  and  how  is  its  existence 
to  be  reconciled  with  the  existence  of  a  good 
God  ?  Only  the  other  day  I  heard  a  man  say, 
"Nothing  would  hinder  me  from  believing 
in  God  if  so  much  evil  did  not  exist  in  the 
world."  So  he  said,  and  so  thousands  think. 
Let  us  realize  that  this  is  the  difficulty  over 
which  the  ages  have  stumbled.  The  mystery 
is  not  how  goodness  came  into  the  world.  No 
one  has  ever  wondered  at  that.  That  good- 
ness should  be  here  every  moral  man  feels  to 
be  natural.  The  only  thing  that  is  not  natural 
is  that  there  should  not  be  more  goodness, 
that  evil  should  be  here  at  all.  That  Jesus 
should  call  himself  the  Son  of  Man,  that  he 
should  stand  unchallenged  before  the  ages  as 
the  typical  and  representative  man,  even  un- 
believers feel  and  admit  to  be  natural  and  right. 

158 


ON    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

He  was  absolutely  good.  He  represents  that 
which  in  our  deepest  selves  and  at  our  best 
moments  we  long  to  be,  and  hope  to  become. 
But  suppose  some  brilliant  and  reckless 
sinner  should  profanely  arrogate  to  himself 
this  title,  suppose  on  the  ground  that  he  had 
tasted  all  human  experiences  good  and  evil, 
because  he  had  sounded  the  depths  of  all 
carnal  knowledge,  he  should  give  himself  out 
to  be  the  Son  of  man  and  the  representative 
of  our  race.  Even  though  his  life  resembled 
ours  far  more  closely  than  does  the  immaculate 
life  of  Jesus,  with  what  horror  and  indignation 
would  his  claim  be  repudiated !  He  the  Son  of 
man!  He  our  representative!  He  represents 
the  things  I  hate,  the  knowledge  I  would  forget, 
the  base  self  I  would  lay  off  and  lose  forever. 
I  will  not  be  represented  by  such  a  man, 
because  I  will  not  admit  that  the  evil  that  cor- 
rupts and  destroys  me  is  a  normal  and  eternal 
part  of  my  nature. 

So  while  admitting  the  reality  of  evil,  we 
159 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

cannot  close  our  eyes  to  the  struggle  with  evil, 
a  struggle  that  is  going  on  within  our  soul,  and 
on  a  larger  scale  outside  us  through  God's 
laws;  an  effort  to  check  evil,  to  limit  it,  to 
make  it  small,  to  heal  it  and  to  turn  it  to 
righteousness.  One  tendency  is  as  real  as  the 
other.  The  question  is  —  which  tendency  is 
prevailing?  The  answer  that  a  man  gives 
to  this  question  will  depend  largely  on  his  own 
experience.  If  evil  has  long  taken  root  in  his 
soul,  if  he  has  grow^n  accustomed  to  it  as  to  a 
familiar  guest,  if  sin  has  become  a  master 
against  which  his  will  has  long  ceased  to 
struggle, -- he  will  probably  believe  that  his 
dreadful  experience  is  openly  or  secretly  the 
experience  of  all  mankind,  and  consequently 
that  the  battle  of  goodness  is  necessarily  a 
lost  battle.  On  the  other  hand,  the  man  who 
has  crucified  sin  in  the  flesh  knows  that  what 
God  has  done  in  him  He  can  do  in  all;  that 
even  the  vilest  sinner  need  not  be  lost  if  in  any 

way  he  can  draw  into  his  soul  the  cleansing, 

160 


ON    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

healing  spirit  of  God.  So  he  looks  hopefully 
forward  to  victory. 

Which  of  these  two  men,  or  which  of  these 
philosophies  of  life,  is  right  ?  There  is  no  limit 
to  goodness.  There  is  no  point  where  the  life 
and  influence  of  a  good  man  must  cease.  It 
is  a  seed,  as  Jesus  said,  capable  of  infinite 
multiplication.  Having  extended  itself  in  this 
life  from  one  to  many,  having  planted  its 
precious  influence  in  many  another  heart,  it 

looks  tranquilly  forward  to  the  life  to  come. 

• 

As  a  good  man  goes  on  his  way,  all  the  forces 
of  God,  all  the  spirits  of  other  good  men  which 
he  has  invited  to  his  home,  help  him  more  and 
more.  The  power  of  evil,  however,  is  strictly 
limited,  for  from  the  beginning  it  tends  towards 
death.  Very  bad  men  seldom  have  very  bad 
children.  Their  children  are  imbecile  rather 
than  bad,  and  God  has  made  imbecility 
childless.  A  man  who  has  been  detected  in  a 
few  wilful  untruths  no  longer  deceives  anyone. 

When  he  is  seen  to  have  made  shipwreck  of 

161 


THE   LIVING    WORD 

his  own  life,  he  serves  as  a  repellent  warning, 
not  as  an  alluring  example.  There  is  in  the 
great  drama  of  humanity  a  posterity  of  Cain 
as  well  as  of  Abel ;  but  God  brands  them  with 
the  mark  of  the  murderer  and  sends  them 
forth  to  wander  in  solitude.  Those  great 
destroyers,  those  scourges  of  God  who  have 
swept  across  the  pages  of  history  breathing 
desolation,  —  Nebuchadnezzar,  Attila,  Kubla 
Khan,  Napoleon, — were  not  all  evil,  otherwise 
their  power  would  have  been  but  little.  But 
as  the  world  grows  better,  such  characters 
become  more  and  more  impossible.  So  God 
sets  limits  to  evil  on  every  side.  In  addition 
to  all  God's  other  ministers  and  angels  He 
has  a  grim  gardener,  an  omnipotent  servant, 
who  does  what  they  cannot  do.  That  servant 
is  Death.  He  is  God's  last  messenger,  which 
God  uses  most  reluctantly.  Only  after  all  other 
means  have  been  exhausted,  when  all  other 
messengers,  the  Law,  the  prophets,  even  the 

Son  himself,  have  been  heard  and  rejected, 

162 


ON    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

does  the  unwilling  word  go  forth  to  Death  - 
"Cut    it    down.       Why    cumbereth    it    the 
ground?" 

Again,  goodness  has  a  goal,  a  definite 
tendency  in  a  given  direction.  We  can  trace 
its  solid  growth  in  humanity  from  age  to  age, 
in  the  ideals  it  sets  up  toward  wrhich  the  whole 
world  moves.  We  see  men  groping  toward 
these  ideals  throughout  the  heathen  world; 
and  in  the  Bible  we  see  one  ideal  steadily 
advancing,  laying  off  one  limitation  and  im- 
perfection after  another,  until  in  Jesus  Christ 
it  shines  forth  in  perfect  beauty.  And  the  end 
of  this  path,  the  light  that  draws  men  to  it, 
the  power  that  sustains  them  in  it,  is  God, 
in  the  direction  of  whose  will  the  whole  creation 
moves.  In  evil,  however,  we  see  no  such  ideal 
and  no  such  progress.  Evil  sets  before  men 
no  grand  uniting  principle,  for  which  they 
are  willing  to  make  sacrifices.  Its  only  mission 
is  to  destroy.  The  longer  it  develops,  the 

wider  it  stretches,  the  higher  it  rises,  the  more 

163 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

certain  and  imminent  is  its  downfall ;  not  only 
because  it  carries  in  it  the  seeds  of  its  own 
destruction,  but  because  over  against  the 
evil  God's  forces  rise  higher,  strike  their  roots 
deeper,  spread  wider  —  and  they  will  over- 
come. Think  of  the  Roman  Empire  and 
Christianity.  Above  and  against  all  evil  are 
two  great  realities  that  are  not  compatible 
with  it,  God  and  eternity.  As  great  as  is  our 
sin,  as  long  continued,  as  deep  as  it  has  struck 
its  roots  into  our  soul,  God  is  greater,  longer 
in  His  eternity,  deeper  is  He  rooted  in  our  soul, 
or  rather  we  in  His  soul.  Therefore,  well  for 
us  that  even  our  evil  is  not  a  thing  outside 
of  God  and  His  help,  but  rather  in  and  under 
God,  although  no  part  of  His  holy  will.  We 
have  tried  our  hand  and  our  feeble  power  in 
this  struggle,  and  we  know  what  we  can  do. 
How  glad  we  may  be  to  relinquish  it  to  God, 
only  taking  care  that  our  will  is  not  in  oppo- 
sition to  His  will,  that  He  may  do  His  work 

in  us  the  sooner.     Apart  from  the  certainty 

164 


ON    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

that  God  will  leave  no  evil  unpurified,  that  He 
will  have  no  part  of  His  being  out  of  harmony 
with  other  parts,  no  thought  of  His,  no  soul 
of  His,  unreconciled  with  His  holy  will,  what 
assurance  have  I  of  final  purity  and  recon- 
ciliation and  peace  ? 

For  after  all,  is  not  this  task  of  ours  also 
God's  task?  Must  we  not  struggle  against 
instincts  and  impulses  implanted  in  our  very 
flesh  and  in  the  constitution  of  our  minds 
by  our  Creator,  which,  used  aright,  lead  to 
highest  happiness, — used  amiss,  to  deepest 
misery?  Are  not  many  of  the  temptations 
which  visit  us  either  bequeathed  to  us  by  those 
who  preceded  us,  or  imposed  upon  us  by  a  lot 
in  life  we  did  not  choose?  In  short,  are  we 
not  from  the  dawning  of  our  moral  life  plunged 
into  the  great  wrorld-conflict  God  is  waging 
with  evil,  not  only  here  but  everywhere  ?  I 
do  not  say  this  to  diminish  our  responsibility, 
but  to  show  that  God  shares  this  responsibility 
with  us,  that  it  is  His  responsibility  as  well  as 

165 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

ours.  All  evil  in  the  world,  in  its  widest 
extension  through  space,  in  its  deepest  roots, 
in  its  highest  heights,  in  its  densest  com- 
plexity, in  its  unceasing  new  births,  is  His  to 
overcome.  But  what  God  has  to  overcome 
in  infinite  space,  He  has  infinite  time  in  which 
to  overcome;  and  what  must  be  overcome 
in  finite  time  can  be  done  only  by  finite 
approximation,  which,  it  is  true,  rises  higher 
and  higher.  Because  this  conflict  is  so  vast,  it 
naturally  inclines  slowly.  So  slowly  does  the 
world  improve  that  it  is  impossible  for  those 
who  look  but  a  little  way  to  see  that  it  improves 
at  all.  But  it  is  only  necessary  to  look  far 
enough  back  on  the  path  humanity  has  trav- 
eled to  see  how  wonderfully  the  world  has 
been  transformed.  In  the  days  of  chaos  did 
a  blue  heaven  arch  over  a  flowery  earth,  and 
were  there  crystal  seas  in  which  sun  and  moon 
were  reflected  as  in  a  vast  convex  mirror? 
At  the  times  of  the  megatheria,  cave-dwellers 

and  Swiss  lake-dwellers,  were  religion,  morality, 

166 


ON    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

science,  and  art  in  existence  ?  Does  not  every 
age  normally  improve  on  the  errors  of  the 
past?  If,  with  new  stages  of  culture,  new 
evils  arise,  yet  they  provide  their  own  incentive 
to  struggle,  and  every  new  stone  of  stumbling 
gives  us  new  wings. 

With  all  this  it  may  be  said  that  the  hard 
question  is  only  pushed  back  a  little  further. 
Whence  comes  the  evil  of  the  world  at  all? 
If  there  is  such  a  good  and  almighty  God,  why 
was  it  not  absolutely  excluded  from  His 
creation  from  the  first,  or  if  we  may  presume 
to  ask  the  question,  how  did  it  come  into  being 
at  all  ?  If  God's  soul,  as  I  believe,  is  an  all- 
comprehending  soul,  if  all  conscious  existence 
is  included  in  God's  existence,  so  all  sin, 
pain,  and  error  are  also  included.  Only  no 
sin  nor  error  can  enter  the  higher  regions  of 
God's  mind  and  will.  They  can  dwell  only 
in  the  lower  regions  of  His  being  where  perfect 
harmony  does  not  yet  prevail,  but  one  thing 

rises  against  another.    Is  there  not  even  in  man 

167 


OF  T^E  \ 


,A  2^ 
OF  T^JE 
UWfVPDQITV     1 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

a  higher  region  above  a  lower,  above  all  sen- 
sual impulses  a  higher  purpose,  above  the 
seeing  eye  a  clearer  vision  and  insight,  above 
mere  pleasure  a  higher,  purer  joy,  above  our 
whole  soul  a  supreme  will  ?  And  yet  the 
highest  in  man  is  but  a  lower  in  God.  "My 
thoughts  are  not  your  thoughts,  neither  are 
your  ways  my  ways,  saith  the  Lord.  For  as 
the  heaven  is  higher  than  the  earth,  so  are  my 
ways  higher  than  your  \vays  and  my  thoughts 
than  your  thoughts." 

In  thus  representing  evil  as  no  accident,  not 
as  suddenly  introduced  from  without  but  as 
present,  in  its  possibility  at  least,  in  the  very 
constitution  of  things,  I  represent  it,  I  believe, 
as  it  is.  In  representing  God  as  taking  no 
pleasure  in  evil,  but  as  hating  evil,  as  setting 
His  all-righteous  will  against  evil,  as  seriously 
engaged  in  the  struggle  Himself,  and  as  work- 
ing forever  to  heal  and  change  the  evil,  and 
only  when  that  is  impossible,  to  destroy  it,  - 
so  far  as  my  own  moral  nature  informs  me, 

168 


ON    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

my  faith  in  God's  goodness  is  absolutely  un- 
shaken. Indeed  I  may  say  more.  The  mere 
thought  of  God's  abstract  perfection,  untried 
by  evil,  the  thought  of  God  standing  apart 
from  the  one  great  struggle  beside  which  the 
guiding  of  the  stars  is  child's  play,  unable 
to  feel  the  anguish  of  His  creatures,  seems  to 
me  cold  and  unreal  beside  the  conception  of 
God  engaged  with  us,  around  us  in  the  great 
struggle  Himself.  No  rational  being  ever 
voluntarily  gives  itself  up  to  evil.  It  does  so 
only  to  avoid  a  greater  evil,  or  not  to  lose, 
as  it  supposes,  a  greater  good.  In  this  man 
is  often  mistaken,  but  God  is  never  mistaken. 
God,  therefore,  neither  brought  forth  evil 
willingly,  nor  consciously  permitted  it.  If 
it  is  there,  it  is  only  because  it  could  not  be 
avoided,  or  because  it  could  be  avoided  only 
by  the  sacrifice  of  a  greater  good. 

So  we  look  for  the  origin  of  evil  not  in  some 
being  outside  of  God,  not  in  the  holy  will  of 

God,  but  in  the  very  nature  of  goodness  itself, 

169 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

which  decrees  that  without  freedom  there  is 
no  virtue.  Just  as  light  implies  shadow, 
and  height  implies  depth,  so  moral  goodness 
implies  the  possibility  of  sinning,  without 
which  it  would  be  no  more  than  blind  instinct. 
Does  this  limit  the  Almightiness  of  God?  Is 
God's  Almightiness  limited  by  the  fact  that  he 
cannot  make  two  and  two  five,  or  that  he 
cannot  alter  the  ratio  of  the  diameter  and  the 
circumference  of  the  circle?  The  logical 
necessity  of  thinking  certain  things  forever 
in  a  certain  manner,  far  from  limiting  God, 
is  the  fundamental  assurance  on  which  God's 
eternal  truth  rests.  If  God  could  and  occa- 
sionally did  make  two  and  t\vo  five,  there 
would  be  no  such  thing  as  eternal  truth.  It 
does  not  limit  God's  omnipotence  to  say  that 
without  freedom,  without  something  outside 
His  will  for  His  will  to  act  on,  He  might  as 
well  have  no  will.  Even  for  Him  moral  good- 
ness w^ould  be  impossible.  So  the  resistance 

of  evil  is  the  foundation  of  God's  eternal  good- 

170 


ON    GOOD    AND    EVIL 

ness,  at  least  it  is  the  foundation  of  the  only 
moral  goodness  we  can  recognize. 

Necessary  then  as  is  the  evil,  so  necessary 
also  is  the  action  of  God's  will  checking,  re- 
deeming, overcoming  the  evil,  and  finally 
turning  it  to  good.  If  everything  from  the  be- 
ginning were  the  best  possible,  where  should 
we  look  for  the  righteous  will  of  God  ?  How 
should  we  find  in  Him  the  truest  example 
of  a  righteous  life,  or  indeed  what  would  a 
righteous  life  mean  ?  If  it  were  a  mere  ques- 
tion of  destroying  the  evil,  doubtless  God  could 
destroy  it  in  a  moment  of  time.  But  to  con- 
vert so  much  evil  into  moral  good,  bring  forth 
so  much  life  out  of  death,  lead  so  many  chil- 
dren from  darkness  into  the  light,  this  cannot 
be  done  in  a  day.  Nothing  grows  more  slowly 
than  the  immortal  plant.  It  may  be  repugnant 
to  some  persons  to  think  of  God  feeling  the 
inexpressible  pain  and  sorrow  of  His  creatures, 
and  as  in  any  sense  engaged  in  their  struggles. 

But  what  I  cannot  understand  is  how  a  man 

171 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

can  really  love  and  trust  a  God,  who,  holding 
Himself  entirely  aloof  from  suffering  and 
temptation,  bestowed  them  all  upon  His  crea- 
tures. The  Christian  Scientists  say,  "God 
cannot  see  evil;  God  does  not  know  evil." 
If  that  is  so,  then  the  most  sacred,  the  most 
solemn  portion  of  my  life  lies  altogether  out- 
side the  knowledge  of  God  and  beyond  His 
help.  That  I  will  never  believe.  If  there  must 
be  suffering  and  sorrow,  and  only  because  there 
must  be  is  there,  then  the  Being  who  compre- 
hends in  Himself  all  spiritual  existence  must 
also  comprehend  all  the  sorrows  of  that  exist- 
ence. Stronger  consolation  in  our  suffering 
we  cannot  have.  Yes,  God  must  have  sor- 
rows and  sufferings  greater  far  than  ours. 
The  sufferings  of  whole  generations,  ages, 
and  peoples  rest  upon  His  heart.  But  so  He 
also  bears  the  balms  and  compensations  for 
their  sufferings;  above  all,  the  joy  of  the  phy- 
sician who  looks  forward  to  the  happy  termi- 
nation of  all  suffering. 

172 


In  Gott  ruht  meine  Seele; 
Der  Engel  ganze  Schaar 
In  seinen  reinen  Hohen 
Lichtstralend  seh'  ich  gehen, 
Und  einer  tragt  raich  gar. 

FECHNEB. 


173 


CHAPTER  IX 

ON   THE   ANGELS 

EVERY  element  has  its  living  creatures, 
which,  by  structure  and  instinct,  are  adapted 
to  it.  The  earth  has  its  worms  and  moles 
below,  its  sheep,  cattle,  and  men  above.  The 
water  has  its  crabs  and  fishes,  the  air  its  butter- 
flies and  birds.  May  we  not  suppose,  then, 
that  the  heavenly  sea  of  ether  —  the  purest 
and  finest,  the  brightest  and  clearest,  the  most 
universal  of  all  the  elements,  in  which  the 
earth  itself  swims — has  also  its  creatures 
that  are  adapted  to  live  in  it?  But  where 
are  they,  unless  they  are  the  worlds  them- 
selves ?  These  creatures  are  absolutely 
adapted  to  their  element  as  the  fish  is  to  the 
water  or  as  the  bird  to  the  air  —  adapted  to  a 

higher   element   to    lead    their   higher,    more 

175 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

enduring  life.  They  swim  without  fins,  they 
fly  without  wings.  They  wander  through 
space  great  and  stately.  They  do  not  run 
here  and  there,  at  war  with  one  another,  or 
anxiously  seek  their  food.  Satisfied  with  the 
light  which  they  shed  on  one  another,  bound 
together  by  a  mysterious  tie  that  spreads 
invisibly  through  all  worlds,  they  obey  one 
another's  slightest  attraction,  and  form  one 
harmonious,  peaceful  fellowship.  If  you  think 
of  these  bodies  as  mere  dead,  inert  masses 
of  matter,  ask  yourself  if  the  being  that  is  the 
source  of  all  life  can  be  accounted  dead.  A 
living  mother  may  bear  dead  children,  but  a 
dead  mother  bears  no  children.  What  leads 
us  to  believe  that  the  worlds  are  living  beings 
is  the  inexhaustible  fulness  of  life  which  one 
of  the  least  of  these  heavenly  wanderers  has 
brought  forth. 

Have  not  men  from  the  earliest  times  fabled 
of  angels  who  dwell  in  the  light  and  who  fly 

through    heaven,    needing    neither    food   nor 

176 


ON    THE    ANGELS 

drink  ?  Have  they  not  conceived  of  the  angels 
as  intermediary  beings  between  us  and  God, 
who  purely  and  perfectly  fulfil  the  will  of  God  ? 
But  here  are  beings  that  dwell  in  light  and 
that  fly  through  the  heaven  in  absolute 
obedience  to  the  will  of  God,  without  fainting 
and  needing  no  earthly  food  or  drink.  And 
if  heaven  is  really  the  house  of  the  angels, 
then  we  must  look  for  the  angels  of  heaven 
in  the  stars;  for  the  heavens  have  no  other 
inhabitants,  and  the  other  sort  of  angels  have 
long  since  vanished,  ceasing  to  appear  alto- 
gether when  men  ceased  to  believe  in  their 
appearances.  It  is  true  no  one  believes  that 
the  stars  are  angels,  because  they  have  not 
faces  like  men  nor  great  feathery  wings  like 
birds.  But  is  it  reasonable  to  suppose  that 
unspeakably  higher  beings  than  men  and  birds, 
dwelling  in  an  unspeakably  higher  element, 
should  be  constructed  exactly  like  men  and 
birds  ? 

According  to  an  old  and  beautiful  belief, 
177 


THE   LIVING   WORD 

all  heavens  are  filled  with  the  praise  of  the 
Eternal  God.  The  angelic  choirs  raise  their 
adoring  song.  They  surround  the  throne 
on  high,  behold  the  Invisible,  lay  hold  of  the 
hem  of  His  garment.  And  do  not  the  stars 
gather  in  innumerable  choirs  of  perfect  har- 
mony? And  do  you  imagine  that  this  earth 
is  the  only  heavenly  body  whose  highest 
thought  is  the  service  and  the  praise  of  God  ? 
The  earth  sings  not  with  one  tongue  merely 
nor  with  one  small  instrument,  but  with 
thousands  of  choruses,  with  flutes,  trumpets, 
organs,  orchestras,  and  bells.  To  the  ear  of 
God  the  earth  is  vocal  with  the  melodies 
of  praise,  and  above  all  praise  in  His  ear 
sound  silent  prayers.  As  it  is  on  earth  so  wre 
may  believe  it  is  in  all  stars  in  all  heavens. 
In  them  all  the  thought  of  God  is  the  highest 
thought,  the  service  of  God  is  the  highest 
service.  '  The  morning  stars  sang  together 
and  all  the  sons  of  God  shouted  for  joy." 

Among    the    angels    there    is    eternal    order, 

178 


ON   THE    ANGELS 

eternal  peace.  They  go  their  way  as  one 
flock  under  one  shepherd,  a  shining  example 
to  their  creatures  that  they  too  shall  become 
one  flock  united  in  the  service  of  the  Highest. 
Looking  up  at  their  tranquil  courses,  man 
perceives  a  higher  path  for  himself  above  the 
mutability  of  human  things.  His  hopes  go 
through  the  night  as  high  as  the  stars  go. 


179 


THE    LIVING    WORD 
IN    GOTT    RUHT    MEINE    SEELE " 

THEODOR     FECHNER 

In  God  my  soul  reposes, 
I  live  by  God  alone; 
All  life  revolves  about  Him, 
I  cannot  live  without  Him, 
He  cannot  me  disown. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes, 
It  dies  at  last,  you  say; 
But  I  no  fear  will  cherish, 
The  soul  can  never  perish 
That  lives  in  Him  to-day. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes; 
Transformed  by  His  grace, 
My  life  shall  tell  His  praises, 
Until  one  day  He  raises 
My  soul  to  His  own  place. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes, 
In  darkness  tho'  immersed; 
For  the  Lord  God  defending 
Throng  witnesses  unending, 
And  Christ  the  Light  is  first. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes; 
Through  fair  celestial  lands 
An  angel  host  is  streaming, 
I  see  the  radiance  beaming, 
One  bears  me  in  his  hands. 
180 


ON    THE    ANGELS 

In  God  my  soul  reposes; 
The  bond  of  souls  is  He. 
This  secret  comprehended, 
Faith,  Hope  and  Love  descended 
From  Heaven  to  dwell  with  me. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes; 

He  is  Himself  the  Key 

Of  goodness,  truth  and  beauty, 

Giving  an  end  to  duty, 

To  thought  its  unity. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes; 
How  small  a  thing  am  I! 
How  fruitless  my  endeavor! 
Mourn  not,  O  soul,  for  ever 
Salvation  draweth  nigh. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes, 
God  shall  its  plan  fulfil. 
His  purpose  bounds  existence, 
In  spite  of  my  resistance 
He  brings  to  pass  His  will. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes, 
Himself  from  sin  is  free; 
Yet  bearing  all,  He  bears  it, 
And  with  His  children  shares  it 
Till  perfect  life  shall  be. 

In  God  my  soul  reposes. 
Oh!  comfort  in  my  pain. 
My  sin  in  His  possession 
-  'Tis  but  a  child's  transgression 
As  sin  cannot  remain. 
181 


THE   LIVING   WORD 

In  God  my  soul  reposes, 

The  voyage  will  be  short; 

Though  storms  from  harbor  sweep  me, 

In  quiet  I  will  keep  me, 

Homebound  for  Him,  my  Port. 

(Translated  by  B.  R.  W.) 


182 


PART  II 


Du  bist  kein  Tropfe,  der  im  Ocean  verschwimmt, 

Du  fiihlest  dich  als  Geist  auf  ewig  selbst  bestimmt. 
Vom  hochsten  Geiste  fiihlest  du  dich  nicht  zur  Verschwim- 

mung 

Im  hochsten  Geist  bestimmt,  sondern  zur  Selbstbestim- 
mung. 

RUCKERT,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  Ill,  s.  115. 


183 


CHAPTER  X 

ON  DEATH  AND  THE  LIFE  AFTER  DEATH 

I  APPROACH  this  old  and  baffling  subject 
on  which  the  ages  have  mused  or  stumbled, 
without  any  preliminary  observations.  I  pass 
over  the  longings  and  misgivings  of  mankind, 
the  utterances  of  great  poets,  the  sayings  of 
the  founders  of  other  religions;  not  that 
these  are  not  weighty,  important,  full  of 
significance,  but  that  I  hasten  to  consider  the 
mystery  itself  in  the  light  of  reason  and  of 
our  own  religion.  In  this  subject  convincing 
proof  and  demonstration  is  what  no  educated, 
no  reasonable  man  looks  for.  Immanuel  Kant 
used  to  say,  "If  any  man  can  prove  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul,  he  is  the  man  I  want  to 
meet."  All  that  we  can  claim  for  our  argu- 
ments is  that  they  are  rational  in  that  they  do 

185 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

not  contradict  the  facts  of  experience,  but  find 
their  support  in  them.  I  call  that  a  good 
argument  for  another  life  which  intrenches 
itself  in  the  facts  of  this  life,  and  which,  while 
shrinking  from  no  fact  of  our  present  existence, 
shows  how  those  facts  point  us  hopefully  on. 
Let  us  remember,  however,  that  if  science  and 
philosophy  are  powerless  to  prove  the  fact  of 
man's  immortality,  they  are  equally  powerless 
to  disprove  it.  They  may  indeed  criticise  our 
arguments,  but  the  mystery  itself  they  can 
only  judge  as  we  judge  it,  in  the  light  of  our 
earthly  experience  and  by  the  analogies  of  our 
present  life. 

The  motives  of  our  belief  in  another  life  are 
the  same  as  the  motives  of  our  belief  in  God. 
Most  men  believe  because  they  have  been 
taught  to  believe  it,  because  other  men  be- 
lieved it  before  them  and  still  believe  around 
them.  Many,  very  many,  believe  because  it 
is  good  and  useful  to  believe.  They  believe 

in  another  life  because  they  need  the  comfort 

186 


LIFE   AFTER    DEATH 

and  support  of  such  faith  to  sustain  them  in 
this  life.  Here  and  there  we  see  men  leading 
noble  lives  apparently  without  any  faith  in 
immortality,  but  as  Renan  says,  they  are  sus- 
tained by  the  knowledge  that  their  friends 
believe  it  for  them.  Lastly,  many  men  believe 
in  another  life  because  after  weighing  the  alter- 
native, in  spite  of  all  difficulties  and  misgivings, 
they  still  consider  it  reasonable  to  believe.  I 
honor  all  these  motives.  I  admit  that  normal 
humah  belief  includes  them  all.  On  no  single 
argument  or  thread  would  I  risk  my  hope 
of  salvation,  but  only  on  what  is  most  universal, 
most  enduring;  on  man's  faith,  man's  need, 
man's  reason,  Christ's  revelation,  God's  good- 
ness, would  I  rest  it.  Yet,  as  I  have  already  de- 
veloped at  length  the  functions  of  these  motives, 
here  I  shall  simply  use  them  as  I  need  them. 
One  difficulty  that  confronts  us  is  this: 
belief  in  another  life  has  depended  too  ex- 
clusively on  the  old  Traditional  Motive.  It 

arose  at  a  time  when  theories  of  Nature  and 

187 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

of  God's  government  were  entertained  which 
have  long  since  perished.  It  has  come  down 
to  us  clothed  in  figures  and  images  which  no 
longer  express  our  true  thought,  but  which 
to  most  men  seem  mythical,  unreal,  outside 
the  sphere  of  what  happens.  In  this  form  it 
has  been  seized,  criticised,  torn  to  pieces  by  the 
great  philosophical  thinkers  and  by  men  of 
science  until  it  seems  to  have  hardly  a  leg  to 
stand  on,  much  less  wings  on  which  to  carry 
us  to  Heaven.  If  this  great  belief,  which  I 
maintain  is  second  only  to  belief  in  God  and 
Christ,  is  to  retain  its  power  over  us  and  our 
children,  it  must  be  separated  from  the  false 
and  outworn  theories  of  the  world  which  we 
have  rejected,  and  united,  as  Jesus  and  St. 
Paul  united  it,  to  the  great  processes  of  Nature 
in  which  we  believe.  There  are  two  ways  of 
robbing  the  next  life  of  all  power  over  us :  one 
is  to  deny  it  altogether;  the  other  is  to  take 
it  out  of  all  necessary  and  vital  connection 

with  this  life.     Many  persons  believe  or  pro- 

188 


LIFE    AFTER    DEATH 

f ess  to  believe  in  another  life ;  but  that  we  shall 
find  ourselves  there  where  we  lost  ourselves 
here,  that  our  new  life  shall  be  the  continuance 
and  development  of  the  old  life,  they  do  not 
believe,  but  assert  that  the  new  life  is  altogether 
different,  and  that  in  it  we  shall  remember 
naught  of  the  old.  So  they  break  the  only 
bridge,  the  bridge  of  memory,  on  which  we  can 
cross  the  sheer  abyss  that  separates  that  world 
from  this.  What  is  the  result  ?  Nothing  is  more 
pitiable,  more  confused  and  contradictory 
than  the  ideas  which  Christians  entertain  of 
their  own  fate  and  of  what  befalls  them  after 
death.  Does  the  soul  pass  into  the  next  life 
alive  and  awake  ?  or  will  it  sleep  profoundly 
like  a  bear  until  the  Last  Day?  Will  it  be 
judged  immediately  on  leaving  the  body? 
If  so,  what  is  the  need  of  a  second  judgment; 
or  will  there  be  any  judgment  at  all?  Must 
we  remain  naked  and  disconsolate  for  millions 
of  years  until  the  old  body  rises  out  of  the  dust, 

or  will  a  new  body  be  provided  for  us;  and 

189 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

what  kind  of  a  body  ?  Does  the  soul  find  itself 
there  where  it  lost  itself  here  ?  or  does  death 
by  a  magical  and  non-moral  charm  suddenly 
carry  it  on  to  perfection  or  sink  it  into  per- 
dition ?  Is  our  eternal  doom  fixed  by  our  con- 
dition at  the  moment  of  death,  or  even  by  the 
state  in  which  we  lived  this  brief  span?  Or 
will  eternity  be  filled  with  goodness,  and  is 
it  given  to  us  that  we  may  make  atonement 
for  the  sins  and  errors  of  time  ?  Above  all, 
will  our  eternal  life  be  spiritual  or  physical? 
The  mere  fact  that  all  these  mutually  destruc- 
tive opinions  are  held  and  taught  by  Christians 
shows  how  hopelessly  at  sea  we  are  on  this 
subject. 

Nor  is  the  outlook  more  reassuring  when  we 
turn  to  those  who  are  not  Christians.  The 
materialist  ridicules  belief  in  another  life 
because  he  sees  all  the  conditions  of  life  de- 
stroyed by  death.  But  he  does  not  ridicule 
the  belief  that  every  cause  has  an  effect,  or 

that  our  bodies  after  death  go  on  producing 

190 


LIFE    AFTER    DEATH 

effects  and  that  not  one  of  their  particles  is  lost. 
Why  then  should  he  ridicule  the  belief  that  the 
soul,  which  is  the  mightiest  cause  upon  this 
earth,  also  goes  on  producing  effects  after 
death,  though  we  may  not  follow  them?  Or 
in  this  case  alone  must  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect  be  broken  ?  But,  you  say,  the  soul 
does  go  on  producing  effects  after  death  in 
the  thoughts  and  other  spiritual  influences  it 
leaves  behind  it.  That  is  true,  but  it  is  a 
different  truth.  So  every  man  leaves  certain 
effects  of  his  physical  life  in  the  children  he 
has  begotten,  the  houses  he  has  built,  etc.,  but 
that  does  not  excuse  his  body  from  the  slow 
process  of  dissolution  it  owes  to  Nature,  which 
demands  an  exact  account  of  every  particle 
of  matter  she  ever  loaned  it.  What  becomes 
of  the  soul  ?  Does  it  vanish  into  nothingness  ? 
This  question  the  Pantheist  answers  by 
saying:  "The  bubble  has  burst  and  that  is  the 
end  of  it.  Now  it  is  taken  back  into  the  All 

out  of  w^hich  it  issued.     A  little  breath  of  air 

191 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

got  into  that  particular  water  drop  and  made 
it  a  bubble.  Now  the  air  has  escaped  and  it 
is  a  drop  of  water  again.  The  world  got  along 
very  well  without  that  bubble,  and  it  will 
get  along  just  as  well  when  the  bubble  is  no 
more.  The  stream  lasts,  the  waves  disappear, 
and  out  of  the  old  waves  new  waves  are  made." 
And  yet  the  Pantheist  knows  that  no  house 
rises  if  its  stones  and  beams  are  torn  away  as 
fast  as  they  are  laid.  He  sees  that  the  tree  does 
not  grow  by  reabsorbing  its  own  root  and 
branches,  that  the  very  reason  wrhy  the  river 
remains  the  old  stream  without  development 
is  because  the  waves  born  in  it  run  together 
again.  But  the  stream  of  life  does  not  remain 
the  old  stream,  but  develops  from  age  to  age, 
launching  waves  entirely  different  from  those 
it  launched  a  thousand  years  ago. 

The  Pessimist  does  not  ridicule  or  criticise 
belief  in  another  life  so  much  as  he  regrets  it. 
He  says:  "Is  there  not  injustice  and  misery 

enough  this  side  the  grave,  but  you  must  dream 

192 


LIFE    AFTER    DEATH 

of  greater  injustice  and  more  misery  beyond 
the  grave?"  But  the  very  reason  we  affirm 
our  belief  is  not  that  the  misery  and  injustice 
of  earth  may  be  prolonged,  but  that  they  may 
be  atoned  for,  that  the  Lord  God  at  last  may 
wipe  away  tears  from  off  all  faces.  However 
discordant  and  stormy  the  theme,  every  earthly 
composer  knows  enough  to  let  his  composition 
end  in  peace  and  harmony.  And  will  the  Mas- 
ter of  all  harmony  let  the  music  of  human 
life  go  out  on  the  dissonance  of  a  death  rattle  ? 
The  arguments  of  pantheists  and  pessimists 
need  not  greatly  disturb  us.  They  are  only  a 
general  way  of  looking  at  human  life  supported 
by  few  certain  facts.  If  we  do  not  accept  their 
premises,  we  need  not  accept  their  conclusions. 
With  materialism  it  is  different.  The  argu- 
ments of  materialism  are  supported  by  facts, 
at  least  they  seem  to  be  so  supported.  In  argu- 
ing against  materialism  we  are  not  arguing 
against  this  or  that  ungodly  man,  but  against 

our  own  stubborn  doubts  and  misgivings.     I 

193 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

believe  there  is  only  one  successful  way  of 
arguing  with  materialism,  that  is  to  look  its 
facts  squarely  in  the  face  and  see  what  they 
actually  point  to.  Then  we  may  be  able  to 
smite  materialism  with  its  own  weapons,  for, 
to  tell  the  truth,  there  are  no  other  weapons. 


194 


'Marvel  not  that  I  said  unto  you,  Ye  must  be  born  again.' 

ST.  JOHN,  III,  v.  7. 


195 


CHAPTER   XI 

WHAT    IS    DEATH? 

WHILE  Gautama  Buddha  was  still  wander- 
ing through  India,  preaching  his  law  of  love, 
a  young  wife,  Kisagotami,  came  to  him  one 
day  to  ask  him  to  work  for  her  a  miracle. 
Kisagotami's  child  had  recently  died.  Her 
love  and  her  sorrow  were  so  great  that  she 
could  not  accept  her  dreadful  loss;  but  she 
wandered,  weeping,  from  place  to  place,  bear- 
ing the  dead  babe  upon  her  bosom,  seeking 
for  some  great  teacher  to  raise  it  from  the 
dead.  At  last  she  came  to  Gautama  and 
asked  him  if  he  could  work  this  miracle  of  love. 
"Certainly,  my  child,"  said  Buddha,  "it  is 
easy;  your  child  shall  live  again;  I  do  but 
need  a  handful  of  mustard-seed."  But  as  the 

joyful    mother    was    departing    to    obtain    it, 

197 


THE   LIVING   WORD 

Buddha  added,  "Remember,  Kisagotami,  this 
mustard-seed  must  come  from  a  house  where 
no  father,  or  mother,  or  brother,  or  sister,  or 
wife,  or  husband,  or  even  a  friend  has  died." 
For  some  time  she  persevered  in  her  search. 
The  people  were  willing  to  assist  her,  but  when 
she  told  them  the  condition  on  which  she 
would  accept  the  seed,  they  said,  "Woman, 
what  is  this  you  ask?  The  living  are  few, 
and  the  dead  are  many."  At  last,  after  many 
days,  she  gave  it  up,  and,  already  half  con- 
soled by  the  common  fellowship  in  suffering 
she  had  found  everywhere,  she  returned  to 
Gautama  to  tell  him  of  her  fruitless  search. 

"Daughter,"  quoth  he,  "hast  found  the  magic  seed?" 
And  she,  "I  find  that  every  heart  doth  bleed, 
"That  every  house  of  death  hath  taken  heed." 
Then  Buddha  said,  "This  knowledge  is  thy  cure, 
"That  sorrow  soon  or  late  to  all  is  sure. 
"Therefore,  my  child,  be  patient  and  endure." 

The  universality  of  death!    The  living  are 
few,  and  the  dead  are  many.     Those  of  us 

who  do  not  already  mourn  will  soon  mourn, 

198 


WHAT    IS    DEATH  ? 

and  others  will  soon  be  mourning  for  us.  It 
is  to  all  who  mourn,  to  all  who  fear  death, 
that  these  words  are  addressed.  They  are 
based  on  the  promises  of  Scripture,  on  the 
ground  of  fact,  on  the  well-proved  continuity  of 
Nature.  To  those  who  turn  with  a  doubtful 
"whether"  (do  the  dead  indeed  live  ?)  Fechner 
replies  by  telling  how  they  live.  Until  we  know 
the  "how,"  the  dreadful  "whether"  cannot 
help  rising  again  and  again,  loud  and  tumultu- 
ous in  our  breasts.  It  is  the  unknown  that  is 
terrible  to  us.  It  is  because  we  make  such  a 
mystery,  such  a  dark  secret  of  Death  that 
we  hate  him.  Did  we  know  him  better,  we 
might  almost  love  him.  "My  children,"  said 
an  old  man  to  his  boys,  scared  by  a  dark  figure 
in  the  entry,  "My  children,  you  will  never  see 
anything  worse  than  yourselves."1 

Almost  everything  that  men  have  written 
on  death  suffers  from  one  serious  omission. 
Almost  all  writers  who  believe  in  immortality 

1  Emerson. 
199 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

have  assumed  that  man  lives  only  twice  — 
here  and  in  another  world.  In  reality  man 
lives  three  times  —  twice  in  this  world,  once 
in  the  world  to  come.  Now,  it  is  always 
difficult,  and  often  impossible,  to  pass  from 
a  single,  known  series  of  facts  to  another  and 
quite  different  series  of  facts.  That  is  the 
well-known  argument  by  analogy.  It  was 
never  a  very  strong  argument,  and  the  more 
remote  the  second  series  is  from  the  first,  the 
weaker  the  argument  becomes.  But  to  pass 
through  two  consecutive  and  intimately  con- 
nected series  of  facts  to  a  third  series  is  a 
stronger  argument.  It  is  an  argument  not 
based  on  analogy  merely,  but  on  the  well- 
known  continuity  of  nature.  Given  only  one 
point,  and  the  best  mathematician  can  do 
nothing  with  it;  but  show  him  the  arc  of  a 
curve,  and  he  will  at  once  construct  the  whole 
figure.  The  advantage  I  claim  for  this  view 
is  that  it  shows  the  small  arc  of  the  curve. 

What  has  happened  once,  under  similar  cir- 

200 


WHAT    IS    DEATH  ? 

cumstances  will  happen  again.  Like  causes 
produce  like  effects,  and,  conversely,  like 
effects  follow  like  causes. 

Now,  I  see  a  number  of  causes  preparing  in 
the  first  life  to  produce  their  striking  effects  in 
the  second  life.  Certain  organs  are  developed. 
They  have  no  meaning,  no  function,  now. 
They  will  have  a  meaning  hereafter.  The 
eye  is  created,  its  thirteen  marvelous  processes 
are  all  elaborated  before  there  is  any  possi- 
bility of  seeing.  The  ear,  with  its  infinite 
delicacy  for  the  apprehension  of  sound,  is 
fashioned  in  the  silence.  They  are  made  in 
the  first  life,  not  for  the  first  life,  but  for  the 
second.  It  does  not  require  fanatical  faith 
to  believe  that  a  being  endowed  with  eyes 
and  ears  will  sometime  walk  in  the  light  and 
receive  sounds  from  the  air.  So  when  in  the 
second  life  I  see  similar  organs  forming,  great 
spiritual  forces  that  can  hardly  be  called  into 
play  in  this  short,  uncertain  life,  -  -  especially 

when  I  look  at  those  strong  souls  on  which 

201 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

generations  and  ages  have  leaned  for  support 
without  exhausting  their  strength,  —  I  believe 
there  is  a  third  life,  in  which  the  spiritual  eye 
shall  see  clearly  and  the  spiritual  ear  shall  be 
wholly  unstopped.  I  even  believe  that  by  a 
comparison  of  the  first  life  with  the  second  I 
can  infer  to  a  certain  degree  what  that  third 
life  will  be. 

Perhaps  I  can  make  this  plainer  by  a  simple 
illustration.  In  the  Hebrew  language  the  roots 
of  words  consist  as  a  rule  of  only  three  letters. 
One  day,  in  reading  a  manuscript  of  the  Old 
Testament,  I  find  an  incomplete  word,  which 
as  it  stands,  conveys  no  meaning.  From  my 
general  knowledge  of  the  book,  I  believe 
every  word  should  have  a  meaning.  I  there- 
fore infer  that  this  wTord  is  incomplete,  and 
I  set  myself  at  once  to  conjecture  what  the 
word  should  be.  If  the  first  letter  as  well  as 
the  last  is  absent,  my  task  will  be  a  difficult 
one;  and  choose  what  word  I  will,  I  shall 

never  be  satisfied  that  it  is  the  right  word. 

202 


WHAT   IS    DEATH  ? 

But  if  the  first  two  letters  are  given,  it  ought 
not  to  be  very  hard  for  me  to  supply  the 
third  letter;  and  if  thereby  I  restore  some 
well-known  Hebrew  word  that  exactly  sup- 
plies the  meaning  I  feel  sure  the  passage 
requires,  my  mind  is  at  rest.  I  believe  that 
my  task  has  been  done,  and  well  done. 

Of  course,  he  who  believes  that  Nature's 
word  has  no  meaning,  is  not  tempted  to  look 
for  a  third  letter.  He  will  not  believe  that  any 
third  letter  exists.  He  will  accept  the  incom- 
prehensible fragment  as  it  stands,  though  he 
cannot  read  it.  But  he  who  believes  that 
Nature's  word  has  a  meaning  will  look  for  a 
third  letter;  and  he  will  find  it  only  in  immor- 
tality, for  it  is  immortality  alone  which  makes 
this  world  intelligible. 

To  the  child,  birth  must  seem  exactly  what 
death  seems  to  us.  It  is  the  violent  end  of 
the  only  life  it  knows.  Like  death  it  is  a 
sudden  event,  accompanied  with  pain  and 

anguish.    The  child  enters  this  world  with  a 

203 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

loud  cry,  over  whose  meaning  philosophers  have 
mused  and  physicians  have  smiled.  The  new 
life  is  so  different  from  the  old  that  the  child, 
with  its  feeble,  undeveloped  senses,  even  had 
it  had  any  intuition  of  that  change,  could  not 
possibly  have  represented  to  itself  what  this 
life  would  be.  Had  it  thought  at  all,  it  could 
only  have  dreaded  the  change  from  the  known 
to  the  unknown,  especially  if  that  change  were 
accompanied  by  pain.  What  a  picture  of  man 
standing  and  shuddering  at  the  thought  of 
death,  which  is  his  second  birth!  The  child 
little  knew  what  a  world  was  to  be  its  home. 
How  could  the  unopened  eye  picture  to  itself 
the  glory  of  the  sun,  the  light  breaking  over  the 
sea,  the  moon  walking  in  strength,  a  jeweled 
flower,  a  woman's  smile  ?  Or  how  could  the 
ear  that  had  never  heard  sound  imagine  the 
surging  and  sobbing  of  the  sea,  the  sound  of 
the  human  voice,  or  even  the  song  of  a  bird  ? 
So  more  awaits  us  after  death  than  we  can 

know  or  think.     "Eye  hath  not  seen,  nor  ear 

204 


WHAT    IS    DEATH  ? 

heard,  neither  hath  it  entered  the  heart  of 
man  to  conceive." 

The  imagination  is  as  helpless  in  one  case 
as  it  is  in  the  other.  We  can  return  no 
answers  to  many  of  its  eager  questions.  But 
for  the  rest  all  is  supremely  certain.  Nothing 
in  the  world  would  be  certain  if  this  were  not. 

Again,  the  child  does  not  enter  a  world  for 
which  it  is  wholly  unprepared.  Those  little 
limbs  were  made  to  move.  That  beautiful  eye 
was  made  in  the  darkness  to  see  the  light  of 
the  world.  The  delicate  ear  was  made  to 
hear.  And  so  every  faculty  we  possess  will 
have  its  employment.  The  spiritual  body  we 
are  making  will  carry  us  far  and  wide,  and 
will  reveal  to  us  many  unsuspected  wonders. 

The  child  does  not  come  into  this  world  a 
stranger;  but  it  comes  to  a  home  where  it  has 
been  desired  and  expected  for  a  long  time, 
where  many  preparations  have  been  made 
to  receive  it.  Nor  do  we  go  to  that  world 

unwelcome  or  unexpected,  but  as  guests  long 

205 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

and  eagerly  desired,  yes,  as  children  returning 
home,  for  whom  the  lamps  are  lighted  and  the 
family  assembled.  There  are  many  in  that 
world  who  are  eagerly  longing  for  us,  and  there 
are  some  whose  happiness  will  never  be  quite 
perfect  until  we  are  there  to  share  it  with  them. 

In  one  sense  death  does  nothing,  yet  in 
another  sense  it  does  all.  It  does  not  change 
us,  it  does  not  destroy  us.  It  does  not  merge 
us  in  the  All  so  that  we  lose  our  own  individual 
life.  It  does  not  suddenly  carry  us  forward 
to  perfection,  nor  sink  us,  as  the  ancients  im- 
agined, to  the  condition  of  weak,  inane  shadows. 
It  transplants  us.  Like  our  first  birth,  it  is 
the  beginning  of  a  new  life.  But  that  great 
ordeal  passed,  that  narrow  gate  traversed, 
we  shall  find  ourselves  exactly  where  we  lost 
ourselves;  and  from  that  point  our  develop- 
ment will  probably  go  on  as  calmly  and  silently 
as  it  went  on  here. 

Yet  the  Day  of  Judgment  is  no  fiction.    We 

shall  be  judged,  simply  because  we  shall  be 

206 


WHAT    IS    DEATH? 

known.  Here  the  soul  hides  itself  under  many 
a  veil  of  flesh.  There  no  such  disguise  is 
possible.  He  who  has  gone  slowly  here  will 
be  lame  there.  He  who  has  used  his  mind 
only  to  move  and  to  feed  his  body,  of  that 
man  little  will  remain  over,  and  yet  something. 
He  who  has  closed  his  eyes  to  God's  love  and 
goodness  will  be  dazzled  and  blinded  by  it 
when  suddenly  it  breaks  on  him  in  all  its 
splendor.  He  who  has  hidden  falsehood  and 
corruption  under  a  fair  exterior  will  suffer 
agonies  of  shame  and  compunction  when  his 
disguise  is  torn  off,  and  the  pure  eyes  of  those 
who  have  loved  him  for  what  he  seemed  to  be 
and  was  not,  turn  from  him  in  sorrow  and 
surprise. 

In  this  life  we  are  too  weak  for  such  revela- 
tions. When  occasionally  they  come  to  us, 
they  inflict  on  us  wounds  from  which  we  may 
never  wholly  recover.  They  may  even  shake 
our  faith  in  all  goodness  forever.  But  there  the 

sense  that  our  guilt,  our  deceit  and  wickedness 

207 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

are  naked  and  open  to  every  eye,  will  cer- 
tainly be  the  strongest  incentive  to  us  to  purify 
and  heal  ourselves.  We  shall  find  no  rest, 
no  perfect  happiness,  until  the  last  vestige 
of  evil  that  clings  to  us  is  stripped  off  and 
atoned  for. 

That  is  the  ground  of  our  imperishable 
hope.  Goodness  is  eternal.  Wisdom  is 
justified  of  all  her  children,  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  evil  is  perpetually  annihilating  itself. 
Lies  are  always  being  found  out  and  branded ; 
errors  discovered  and  avoided.  Passion  and 
folly  constantly  prove  themselves  to  be  mis- 
takes. So  if  a  man  has  hidden  away  in  his 
life  only  one  mustard-seed  of  eternal  truth, 
(without  which  could  he  live  at  all  ?)  it  is  not 
impossible  to  God  that  that  good  seed  may 
grow  into  a  great  tree  and  crush  the  noxious 
weeds  that  have  overshadowed  and  choked 
the  good  so  long. 

In  that  world  where  all  is  known,  errors 

and  false  judgments  do  not  exist.    That  which 

208 


WHAT    IS    DEATH  ? 

was  weighed  falsely  here  will  be  weighed 
truly  there.  So,  many  a  last  shall  be  first, 
and  the  first  last.  The  holy  purpose,  disap- 
pointed and  thwarted  or  cut  short  by  death, 
shall  have  its  reward.  Those  who  had  nothing 
to  offer  but  their  tears  shall  see  those  tears 
moistening  and  refreshing  many  a  parched 
spot  of  earth.  Many  who  were  unknown 
here  shall  find  themselves  well  known  there. 
God's  justice  is  perfect. 

Even  the  babe  who  dies  a  few  days  or  a  few 
hours  after  its  eyes  have  opened  on  the  light 
of  this  world  does  not  perish  everlastingly. 
Just  as  a  melody  once  struck  continues  to 
vibrate  in  the  atmosphere  for  ages  after  it  has 
ceased  to  be  heard,  just  as  a  wave,  once 
launched,  propagates  itself,  crosses  countless 
other  waves  without  losing  itself,  crosses  the 
broad  sea  until  it  reaches  at  last  the  farther 
shore,  —  so  the  soul  is  not  destroyed,  but 
lives  on  until  it  comes  at  last  to  its  own 
place. 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

After  the  death  of  his  two  little  children 
Ruckert  composed  seventy  Kindertotenlieder 
(songs  of  the  dead  children),  of  which  this 
lovely  verse  is  number  sixty-seven. 

"  Heut'  kommen  deine  vier, 

Um  Gliick  zu  wiinschen  dir 
Zum  Tag  der  dich  gebar. 

Sechs  waren  es  vorm  Jahr. 
Nun  fehlt  das  Parchen.    Nein! 

Es  stellet  mit  sich  ein, 
Kommt  hergeflogen  auch 

Vom  Himmel  wie  ein  Hauch 
Und  wiinschet  Gliick  und  Heil 

Dir  auch  an  seinem  Teil. 
"  Auch  wir,  geboren  dir, 

Sind  unverloren  dir, 
Und  danken  als  dein  Kind, 

Dass  wir  geboren  sind, 
Geboren  nicht  zur  Schein, 

Zum  wesenhaften  Sein, 
Die  anderen  fur  die  Zeit, 

Wir  fur  die  Ewigkeit, 
Sie  fUr  des  Lebens  Braus, 

Wir  fur  das  stille  Haus, 
Wo  wir  in'Frieden  ruhn 

Und  segnen  deinen  Thun." 

To  attain  that  higher  and  perfect  life,  to 

know,  to  be  happy,  to  be  perfect,  death  is 

210 


WHAT   IS    DEATH  ? 

necessary.  Just  as  the  child  could  never  come 
to  perfect  manhood  or  womanhood  imprisoned 
in  the  womb,  so  we  attain  our  perfect  life  only 
through  that  second  birth  we  call  death.  In 
this  world  the  outer  senses  must  sink  to  sleep 
before  the  inner  world  of  thought  awakes. 
The  more  objects  distract  the  attention,  the 
less  plainly  we  see  each.  The  more  we  con- 
centrate our  minds  on  one,  the  more  the  others 
retreat  into  the  darkness.  The  deeper  the 
sleep,  the  more  perfect  the  waking.  The  more 
perfect  the  waking,  the  deeper  the  sleep. 
And  yet  in  this  world,  we  never  more  than 
half  sleep.  Should  we  plunge  a  little  deeper, 
we  should  never  wake.  The  old  man  watches 
beside  us  and  hinders  us  from  taking  that 
plunge.  Death  gives  us  our  first  perfect  sleep. 
The  old  man  at  last  has  relaxed  his.  watch. 
So  when  we  wake,  we  wake  to  a  new  life; 
and  yet  it  is  but  a  continuation  of  the  old  life, 
just  as  the  old  man's  body  is  the  continuation 

of  the  body  of  the  child,  although  it  now  con- 

211 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

tains  not  one  atom  of  the  child's  body.  Even 
so  that  life  will  contain  all  the  consciousness  of 
this  life, —  all  we  have  ever  known,  or  thought, 
or  felt.  That  which  we  have  forgotten,  we  have 
forgotten  because  it  has  gone  before  us,  but  it 
is  there  waiting  for  us. 

Once  more,  and  perhaps  this  is  the  most 
important  thought  of  all,  --the  child's  whole 
forces  before  its  birth  are  expended  in  form- 
ing a  body.  The  materials  indeed  are  fur- 
nished it  by  another,  but  the  formative  power 
must  come  from  itself.  From  the  tiny,  form- 
less germ,  it  goes  on  building  and  fashioning 
an  organism,  until  the  most  perfect  form  we 
can  imagine  is  ready  to  go  forth  into  its  new 
and  larger  life.  So  our  life  in  this  world  is 
given  us  to  make  a  spiritual  organism  for  this 
world  and  the  world  to  come.  That  is  its 
real,  its  only  real  purpose.  Just  as  all  phys- 
ical forces — light  and  darkness,  food  and 
warmth,  air  and  water  —  are  given  us  as  we 
can  use  them  to  make  and  to  maintain  our 


WHAT   IS    DEATH  ? 

physical  bodies,  so  all  spiritual  forces  — 
truth  and  goodness,  influence,  holy  associa- 
tion and  example  —  are  given  to  us  as  we 
can  use  them  to  make  our  spiritual  body. 
The  soul  cannot  grow  of  itself  any  more 
than  the  body  can  grow  of  itself.  The  soul 
lives  on  God  wherever  it  finds  God;  yet  the 
soul  does  not  lose  itself  in  God,  is  not  ab- 
sorbed by  God  any  more  than  the  living 
body  is  absorbed  in  the  air  it  breathes,  or 
the  water  it  drinks.  The  soul  also  grows 
by  the  intercourse  and  example  of  the  good. 
Look  back  over  your  own  life;  can  you  not 
tell  to  whom  you  owe  what  you  are  ?  We  do 
not,  we  cannot,  live  to  ourselves.  We  are 
united  truly  and  forever  to  those  by  whom 
our  character  has  been  formed,  our  torch  has 
been  kindled.  We  belong  to  them,  for  they 
have  made  us  what  we  are;  and  there  are 
others  who  belong  to  us.  W^e  are  constantly 
incorporating  ourselves  into  the  lives  of  others 

by  word  and  deed,  by  example  and  writing. 

213 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

This  is  the  profound  meaning  of  the  com- 
munion of  saints,  which  many  have  talked 
about  and  few  have  seen. 

Even  while  Goethe  lived,  millions  of  men 
carried  within  them  the  living  sparks  of  his 
soul.  It  is  not  otherwise  now  that  he  is  dead. 
The  greatest,  the  only  perfect  example  of  this 
is  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  The  energy  of  His 
soul  still  vivifies  us.  It  is  to  Him  we  owe  all, 
or  almost  all.  It  wras  no  figure  of  speech 
when  He  said  —  "Lo,  I  am  with  you  always. 
I  am  the  vine,  ye  are  the  branches."  He  lives 
in  the  lives  of  all  who  love  Him,  in  all,  wrho, 
inspired  by  Him,  feel  and  think  as  He  felt  and 
thought.  He  is  indeed  the  vine  from  which 
we  draw  our  strength  and  life,  the  vine  on 
which  we  all  hang  like  clustering  grapes. 

This  is  the  cogent  and  sufficient  answer  to 
all  who  ask  — "  Shall  I  see  the  loved  one 
again?  Shall  I  be  united  to  him  again? 
Will  the  old  sweet  life  ever  be  renewed? 

Shall  we  continue  to  teach  and  bless  and  help 

214 


WHAT    IS    DEATH  ? 

and  love  each  other  as  in  the  days  that  are 
gone  ?"  This  longing  to  meet  again,  to  know 
again  those  we  have  lost,  will  be  fulfilled  more 
perfectly  than  we  can  possibly  imagine.  You 
will  indeed  see  him  again ;  you  will  know  him 
again.  You  will  be  united  more  perfectly  in 
heart  and  mind  than  you  could  be  here.  Our 
first  life  was  a  constant  sleep;  our  second  life 
is  an  alternation  between  sleeping  and  waking ; 
our  third  life  shall  be  all  waking.  Our  first 
life  was  complete  loneliness  and  isolation ;  our 
second  life  is  an  alternation  between  loneli- 
ness and  companionship;  our  third  shall  be 
all  companionship.  "Now  I  know  in  part,  but 
then  shall  I  know  even  as  also  I  am  known." 
Even  now  the  dead  are  nearer  to  you  than 
you  imagine.  Do  not  shrink  from  this  thought 
as  though  it  contained  something  terrible. 
Emotions  do  not  flow  all  in  one  direction 
they  are  reciprocal;  they  flow  from  us  to  the 
beloved  one,  and  from  the  beloved  one  back 

to  us,  just  as  the  blow  is  felt  by  the  object 

215 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

smitten  and  the  hand  that  strikes.  When  you 
think  lovingly  and  earnestly  of  the  lost  one,  it 
is  because  he  is  near  you.  The  more  earnestly, 
the  more  lovingly,  you  think,  the  nearer  he 
draws.  There  was  once  a  woman  who  ran 
everywhere  distractedly  seeking  for  the  child 
she  carried  all  the  while  on  her  arm.  And 
so  we  seek,  and  so  we  stretch  empty  and 
supplicating  arms  to  an  empty  sky,  whereas, 
would  we  but  return  into  our  own  hearts,  we 
should  soon  find  the  lost  one  there. 

We  shall  also  be  united  to  all  those  great 
and  good  men  we  have  learned  to  love  and 
appreciate  here.  We  are  indeed  already 
united  to  those  on  whose  thoughts  and  ex- 
amples we  live ;  but  we  shall  be  united  to  them 
more  perfectly,  more  personally,  and  we  shall 

find  them  better,  wiser,  and  truer  than  the  men 

» 

who  once  wralked  this  earth.  If  we  think  of  the 
rapid  and  marvelous  development  of  Plato's 
powers  during  the  ten  years  that  followed 

Socrates'  death,  what  a  Plato  might  we  not 

216 


WHAT    IS    DEATH  ? 

expect  to  find  after  two  thousand  years  of 
untrammeled  progress !  Who  could  imagine  to 
himself  a  Shakespeare,  a  Dante,  a  Goethe, 
or  a  Balzac,  after  having  seen  things  as  they 
are  for  five  hundred  years  ?  And  yet  there 
are  many  lessons  only  deep,  personal  love 
can  teach,  lessons  we  can  learn  only  from 
those  who  have  loved  us  best.  It  was  a  pro- 
found instinct  of  truth  that  led  Goethe  to 
commit  his  world-wise,  experienced  hero  after 
death  to  the  tutelage  of  Margaret,  the  simple 
girl  he  had  loved  and  ruined  long  ago.  And 
it  was  a  glad  song  of  joy  and  forgiveness  that 
burst  from  her  lips :  - 

"Incline,  O  Maiden, 
With  mercy  laden, 
In  light  unfading, 

Thy  gracious  countenance  upon  my  bliss: 
My  loved,  my  lover, 
His  trials  over, 
In  yonder  world,  returns  to  me  in  this." 

The  real  and  important  outcome  of  all  I 

have  been  saying  is  this.     Death  is  nothing 

217 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

more  than  a  second  birth;  not  figuratively 
but  literally.  We  need  dread  it  no  more  than 
the  child  need  dread  to  be  born.  The  birth 
pangs  are  painful,  but  they  are  soon  over. 
Then,  new  and  greater  life.  Such  as  we  are 
here,  such  we  shall  find  ourselves  there,  yet  not 
without  the  hope  of  progress  and  of  final 
victory.  The  lessons  of  this  life  must  be 
learned  somewhere,  somehow,  before  we  can 
take  another  step  towards  perfection.  That 
is  the  profound  truth  underlying  the  diabolical 
doctrine  of  transmigration.  The  real  purpose 
of  this  life  is  to  make  a  soul,  to  fashion  a 
spiritual  organism;  a  soul,  great  it  may  be, 
but  anyway  sound,  sweet,  pure,  and  honest. 
This  is  the  one  important  thing  in  this  life. 
Those  who  are  mistaken  on  this  point,  those 
who  take  pleasure  or  power  or  vice  or  frivolity 
for  a  sufficient  aim  in  life,  are  simply  missing 
the  purpose  of  their  existence.  But  they  shall 
atone  for  their  error  by  many  sufferings,  by 
many  regrets. 


WHAT   IS    DEATH  ? 

The  creation  of  this  good  soul  is  possible 
for  us  all.  That  is  the  great  justice  of  God 
concealed  in  this  world  under  the  appearance 
of  injustice.  Circumstance  is  really  almost 
indifferent.  One  cannot  say  that  one  set  of 
circumstances  is  better  or  more  favorable  than 
another.  "All  things  work  together  for  good 
to  them  that  love  God."  Epictetus  attained 
the  divine  life  in  a  slave  kennel.  Marcus 
Aurelius  led  it  on  the  throne  of  the  world. 
Yet  for  Marcus  Aurelius  it  was  probably 
harder  than  for  Epictetus.  Buddha  left  a 
kingdom  to  find  holiness.  Louis  the  Ninth 
converted  his  court  into  a  sanctuary.  Washing- 
ton, from  a  home  of  refinement,  affluence,  and 
luxury,  became  the  "Father  of  his  country." 
Abraham  Lincoln,  untrammeled  by  a  narrow 
lot,  a  deficient  education  and  innumerable 
privations,  saved  the  Republic  and  created 
a  new  type  of  manhood.  The  example  and 
society  of  the  good  cheer  and  help  us ;  but  am 

I  thrown  among  men  whose  lives  and  principles 

219 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

I  cannot  honor  as  the  best,  my  own  inner  ideal 
stands  before  me  as  I  never  saw  it  before,  and 
with  commendation  and  approval  if  I  am 
strong,  or  with  pity  and  sorrow  if  I  am  weak, 
it  looks  down  on  me  with  living  and  sympa- 
thetic eyes.  To  some,  strength  gives  the 
opportunity  of  noble  labor;  on  others,  weak- 
ness imposes  the  duty  of  patient  suffering. 
Yet  who  can  say  that  the  one  is  greater  or 
better  than  the  other?  So  we  attain  the  goal 
at  last,  we  will  not  quarrel  with  the  way  by 
which  God  leads  us  to  it.  Do  you  seek  the 
great  opportunity?  You  can  find  it  precisely 
where  you  are  now. 

After  all  is  said,  the  soul  is  the  main  thing. 
It  is  that  which  endures ;  it  is  that  which  suffers 
and  enjoys.  Those  who  have  been  so  happy 
at  any  time  in  their  lives  as  to  be  thrown  with 
really  noble  natures  will  remember  that  more 
touching,  more  penetrating  than  the  inspired 
word  or  worthy  deed  were  those  direct  flashes 

from  the  true  soul,  gone  in  a  moment  and  yet 

220 


WHAT    IS    DEATH? 

never  forgotten  —  the  face,  suddenly  illumined 
and  radiant  with  loving  light,  instantaneous 
sympathy  responding  to  every  appeal,  the 
cheerful  courage  firm  as  steel, --we  recog- 
nized, we  hardly  knew  how,  absolute  resigna- 
tion, unfaltering  faith  expressed  by  a  glance,  a 
sigh,  felt  rather  than  understood. 

That  was  the  soul  shining  out  through  its 
cerement  of  clay.  And  those  pure  souls  shine 
now  like  stars  in  the  better  world.  Therefore, 
fear  not  and  repine  not.  Eternal  life  is  in  you, 
eternal  companionship  is  before  you,  and  you 
will  find  it  sweeter  and  better  than  you  can 
know  or  think. 

But  you  say --what  an  argument  this  is 
after  all!  If  you  set  your  hope  of  immortality 
on  the  feeble  glimmering  of  a  soul  before  birth, 
on  the  -formation  of  organs  like  the  eye  and  ear, 
then  your  hope  must  include  all  animals  and 
birds,  and  even  reptiles,  insects,  and  fishes,  all 
of  whom  undergo  the  same  strange  metamor- 
phoses. Is  not  this  a  proof  of  the  futility  of 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

your  reasoning  ?  Does  it  not  point  at  most  to 
a  higher  life  in  this  world  than  the  embryonic 
state  that  preceded  it,  but  by  no  means  to  an 
eternal  and  spiritual  life  beyond  this  world  ? 
I  confess  I  have  never  felt  the  shrinking  that 
some  persons  feel  from  predicating  another 
life  for  the  brutes.  For  me  there  would  be 
something  lacking  in  a  world  without  our  wrise 
and  good  animals,  which  I  doubt  if  the  angels 
could  fill.  As  Augustine  says,  we  are  all 
God's  brutes,  but  I  ask  you  to  notice  that  I 
find  these  hints  and  intimations  of  immortality 
not  in  the  organs  and  instincts  of  animals, 
but  in  the  spiritual  capacities  of  man.  As  far 
as  this  argument  is  concerned,  it  points  only 
to  the  immortality  of  man,  and  to  that  only  on 
the  ground  of  his  spiritual  faculties.  I  merely 
say  that  by  looking  back  to  what  man  has  been, 
it  is  easier  to  look  forward  to  what  he  will  be. 
In  fact,  the  very  considerations  which  lead  us  to 
predicate  another  life  for  man  deter  us  from 

predicating  it  of  the  animal.    What  impresses 

222 


WHAT    IS    DEATH? 

us  most  in  the  wild  animal  in  its  natural  habi- 
tat is  its  absolute  conformity  to  its  environ- 
ment, its  perfect  adaptation  to  the  life  it  lives, 
its  contentment,  its  lack  of  progress.  It  is  so 
conformed  to  this  world  that  it  needs  and 
seeks  no  other  world.  If  it  should  live  again, 
it  could  only  repeat  what  it  has  done  before. 
And  what  impresses  us  most  in  man  is  that  in 
spite  of  the  innumerable  ages  he  has  spent  in 
this  world,  he  is  never  more  than  half  at  home 
here.  From  the  dawn  of  his  spiritual  life  he 
has  been  held  in  the  grip  of  a  mighty,  uncom- 
prehended  longing.  Turning  his  back  on 
this  physical  world,  he  has  created  an  invisible 
and  spiritual  world  on  which  his  deepest  fears, 
his  loftiest  inspirations,  his  dearest  hopes  have 
been  nurtured.  The  ideals  he  has  pursued, 
the  moral  character  he  has  developed,  are 
far  beyond  what  a  successful,  enjoyable  life 
in  this  world  demands  of  him.  In  fact,  the 
moral  ideal  to  which  we  bow  is,  as  even  Huxley 
confessed,  in  sheer  defiance  of  the  law  of  Na- 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

ture;  that  is,  the  law  of  our  members  and 
appetites.  Our  bodies  indeed  have  ceased  to 
develop.  The  term  of  our  years,  roughly 
speaking,  still  stands  at  the  old  threescore 
years  and  ten ;  but  the  lives  of  the  best  of  our 
race,  their  resolute  self-sacrifice,  their  almost 
infinite  capacity  for  the  knowledge  and  love 
of  God,  would  be  the  strangest  contradiction 
were  they  cut  short  after  a  few  uncertain 
years  in  this  w^orld.  "If  there  be  reason  and 
economy  at  the  bottom  of  this  universe,  such 
souls  as  Socrates,  Plato,  Saint  John,  Saint 
Paul,  and  Jesus  would  not  have  been  created 
only  to  be  destroyed."  In  reality,  the  argu- 
ment I  am  pursuing  is  only  a  new  application 
of  the  argument  of  evolution,  —  a  following 
of  the  life-history  of  the  individual,  instead  of 
the  history  of  the  race.  The  one  is  just  as 
fruitful,  just  as  legitimate  as  the  other.  Just 
as  in  our  first  life  the  creation  of  certain  organs 
of  no  immediate  use  points  to  a  second  physical 

life  where  they  will  be  useful,  so  in  our  present 

224 


WHAT    IS    DEATH  ? 

life  the  creation  of  eternal  and  spiritual 
faculties  which  can  hardly  be  trained  or  called 
into  play  here,  points  to  a  third  —  a  spiritual 
and  eternal  life. 


225 


Be  not  deceived,  God  is  not  mocked,  for  whatsoever  a  man 
soweth,  that  shall  he  also  reap.  GAL.  6:  7. 


227 


CHAPTER  XII 

ON    THE   SPIRITUAL   BODY 

THE  first  thing  forced  on  our  attention  in 
this  verse  is  St.  Paul's  assumption  that  a 
man's  life  is  a  part  of  those  great  natural 
processes  over  which  man  himself  has  little 
power.  The  seed  belongs  to  him ;  he  can  sow 
it  in  good  fields  or  in  bad.  But  if  he  does 
sow  it  it  passes  at  once  out  of  his  control. 
When  it  leaves  his  hand  the  forces  of  the 
universe  take  it  up,  they  act  on  it  in  accord- 
ance with  laws  over  which  man  has  no  influ- 
ence at  all.  He  only  knows  that  the  seed 
sown  will  increase  so  rapidly  that  it  will  soon 
be  very  difficult  to  check  its  growth  should 
he  wish  to  do  so,  and  also  that  the  seed  sown 
will  reproduce  itself.  The  harvest  reaped  will 

be    strictly  the    same    in   kind    as    the    seed 

229 


THE   LIVING   WORD 

sown.  There  is  no  process  known  to  agri- 
cultural chemistry  that  can  transform  potatoes 
into  turnips,  or  Russian  thistles  into  sugar 
beets,  and  there  is  no  process  of  spiritual 
chemistry  that  can  transform  a  seedtime  of 
frivolity  and  vice  into  a  harvest  of  happiness 
and  honor.  If  we  have  such  seeds  within  us 
we  had  better  destroy  them;  but  if  we  plant 
them  we  must  expect  to  reap  the  harvest  we 
have  sown.  That  is  not  all:  God  only  knows 
how  much  good  wheat  shall  be  ruined  by  our 
tares.  Evil,  like  everything  else  dropped  on  the 
rich  soil  of  human  life,  multiplies  by  a  law 
of  its  own.  Who  knows  what  old  sin  of  some 
forgotten  man  was  the  first  occasion  of  his 
own  undoing  ?  Who  knows  what  happy  life 
may  be  blighted  and  ruined  by  our  wicked 
indulgences  ? 

"With  earth's  first  clay  they  did  the  last  man  knead 
And  then  of  the  last  harvest  sow'd  the  seed; 
And  the  first  morning  of  creation  wrote 
What  the  last  dawn  of  reckoning  shall  read." 

230 


I 

ON    THE    SPIRITUAL    BODY 

This  great  text  of  St.  Paul's  also  contains  a 
thought  of  death.  The  buried  seed  that  proves 
itself  alive  and  works  its  way  through  the  dark 
enveloping  earth  to  the  light  of  day,  to  a  new 
and  transformed  life,  then  and  not  till  then 
bringing  forth  large  fruits,  —  that  is  the 
favorite  scriptural  image  of  death  and  the 
resurrection.  It  not  only  forms  the  burden  of 
St.  Paul's  great  chant  of  victory  which  we 
read  in  the  burial  of  the  dead,  but  Christ 
himself  employed  it  when  he  said,  "Except 
a  grain  of  corn  fall  into  the  earth  and  die,  it 
abideth  alone,  but  if  it  die  it  bringeth  forth 
much  fruit."  Let  us  consider  this  a  little 
further. 

Unquestionably  the  Christian  doctrine  of 
the  future  life  is  the  doctrine  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body.  We  affirm  it  every  time 
we  repeat  the  Apostles'  Creed.  Renan  con- 
sidered this  a  more  philosophical  doctrine 
than  the  mere  immortality  of  the  soul,  since 

it  is  impossible  for  us  to  imagine  the  soul  ex- 

231 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

isting  without  an  organ  by  which  it  can  know 
and  be  known.  Two  thirds  of  the  world, 
Christians,  Jews,  and  Mohammedans,  believe 
in  the  resurrection  of  the  body.  Outside  a 
handful  of  philosophical  thinkers,  how  many 
people  believe  on  rational  grounds  in  the 
immortality  of  the  soul  ?  The  only  question 
I  shall  concern  myself  with  is  the  old  ques- 
tion asked  in  St.  Paul's  day  -  "How  are  the 
dead  raised  up  and  with  what  body  do  they 
come?"  Now  many  persons  are  so  taken  up 
with  their  own  gross  materialistic  notions  of 
a  resurrection  of  flesh  and  blood  and  bones 
that  they  pay  no  attention  to  what  St.  Paul 
really  teaches  on  the  subject.  I  will  say,  then, 
that  for  an  animal  organism  like  this,  a  cellu- 
lar body,  consisting  of  heart,  lungs,  digestive 
apparatus,  etc.,  I  would  not  contend  for  a 
minute.  If  anything  is  certain  in  this  world, 
it  is  that  when  the  heart  ceases  to  beat,  it 
ceases  forever.  The  machine  is  worn  out, 

that  is  why  it  runs  no  longer. 

232 


ON    THE    SPIRITUAL    BODY 

To  change  a  word  of   James    Thomson's 
verse  - 

"Nothing  is  of  us  in  the  mouldering  flesh 

Whose  elements  dissolve  and  merge  afresh 
In  earth,  air,  water,  plants,  and  other  men." 

Moreover,  this  is  not  the  doctrine  of  the  New 
Testament  at  all.  Jesus  rebuked  those  who 
thought  that  the  next  world  was  but  a  con- 
tinuation of  the  physical  relations  of  this, 
declaring  that  the  children  of  the  new  birth 
are  like  the  angels.  If  we  examine  what  St. 
Paul's  doctrine  really  is  we  shall  see  that  in 
the  famous  chapter  of  Corinthians  he  exhausts 
the  resources  of  language  in  the  antitheses  he 
establishes  between  the  body  that  is  laid  in  the 
earth  here,  and  the  body  with  which  the  soul 
is  clothed  there.  "Thou  fool,  that  which  thou 
sowest  thou  sowest  not  that  body  that  shall  be, 
but  bare  grain,  it  may  chance  of  wheat  or  of 
some  other  grain."  "This  I  say,  brethren, 
that  flesh  and  blood  cannot  inherit  the  king- 
dom of  God,  neither  doth  corruption  inherit 

233 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

incorruption."  "It  is  sown  in  corruption, 
it  is  raised  in  incorruption.  It  is  sown  in  dis- 
honor, it  is  raised  in  glory ;  it  is  sown  in  weak- 
ness, it  is  raised  in  power;  it  is  sown  a  natural 
body,  it  is  raised  a  spiritual  body." 

I  accept  these  words  literally.  I  believe 
that  fairly  interpreted  they  represent  the 
highest  truth  on  this  subject,  but  just  because 
most  persons  do  not  accept  them  literally, 
but  explain  them  away  to  suit  their  own 
materialistic  notions,  my  viewr  of  the  subject 
may  seem  strange  to  some,  though  I  am  not 
without  hope  that  it  will  approve  itself  to  a 
good  many.  He  that  can  receive  it,  let  him 
receive  it. 

St.  Paul's  doctrine  culminates  in  the  asser- 
tion that  the  body  that  shall  be  raised  up  is 
wholly  spiritual.  This  is  the  only  point  in 
this  passage  I  shall  consider.  To  a  great 
many  persons  a  spiritual  body  may  seem  a 
contradiction  in  terms.  To  persons  having 

little  faith  in  the  things  of  the  spirit,  such  a 

234 


ON    THE    SPIRITUAL   BODY 

body  may  seem  no  body  at  all,  less  than  the 
light  wraith  of  a  ghost.  In  truth,  it  is  neither 
a  contradiction  nor  an  unreality.  In  this 
world  the  body  is  the  home  of  the  soul.  The 
soul  in  some  mysterious  way  lives  in  it.  By 
our  bodies  we  are  known  and  distinguished 
from  every  one  else.  By  our  bodies  we  act 
and  receive  impressions  from  the  world.  We 
are  born  in  them,  we  live  in  them,  and  we  die 
in  them.  Then  we  leave  them.  There  is  no 
change  as  mysterious  as  the  change  that  takes 
place  in  the  body  at  the  moment  of  death. 
When  our  body  is  tired,  we  are  tired  and 
lie  down  to  sleep.  But  by  and  by  the  time 
comes  when  our  body  is  too  tired  to  be  re- 
freshed by  any  sleep  less  profound  than  the 
sleep  of  death.  In  death  the  soul  does  not 
lie  down  to  sleep  in  its  old  bed.  The  old  bed, 
that  was  too  narrow  and  too  short  for  it  is 
destroyed,  and  it  is  driven  out  into  the  free 
distance,  where  it  at  once  finds  itself  in  a  new 

and  larger  house,  as  the  Apostle  says,  "Not 

235 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

that  we  should  be  unclothed,  but  clothed  upon, 
that  mortality  may  be  swallowed  up  of  life." 

What  is  this  new  house  in  which  the  soul 
finds  itself  ?  It  is  not  really  a  new  house,  it  is 
an  old  house,  only  hitherto  it  was  concealed 
by  the  little  house  of  clay.  Ever  since  you  were 
born,  ever  since  you  began  to  think,  you  have 
been  building  this  new  house,  this  spiritual 
body.  Only  up  to  the  moment  of  death  it 
has  been  closed  to  all  strangers.  Over  its 
threshold  no  foot  but  ours  and  God's  has  ever 
passed:  now  it  is  open  to  all.  I  can  only  com- 
pare it  to  the  only  other  resurrection  I  know, 
when  many  chrysales  burst  the  cocoons  that 
have  separated  them  so  long  and  fly  together 
as  butterflies  in  the  sunshine  of  a  garden.  But 
you  ask  me  again,  what  is  that  spiritual  house  ? 
What,  then,  is  the  home  in  which  your  soul 
has  lived  these  many  years  ?  Apart  from  your 
body,  with  its  sensations,  its  consciousness 
of  pain  or  well-being,  is  there  not  a  larger  house 

in  which  your  soul  has  gone  up  and  down, 

236 


ON   THE    SPIRITUAL    BODY 

sleeping  and  waking,  a  house  which  you  have 
built  yourself,  room  by  room,  story  by  story, 
whose  building  stones  are  thoughts,  hopes, 
affections,  in  a  word  the  memories  of  a  life- 
time ?  In  that  house  you  are  never  alone ;  you 
have  but  to  shut  the  outer  door  of  sense,  to 
enjoy  the  society  of  all  you  ever  held  dear. 
Young  or  old,  dead  or  living,  this  house  contains 
them  all.  All  the  truth  your  soul  has  been  able 
to  abstract  from  the  universe  is  here.  All  the 
noble  voices  to  which  your  heart  has  ever 
thrilled  speak  to  you  here.  All  the  sorrow 
of  your  life,  all  its  sins  and  pollutions,  all  your 
broken  promises  to  God,  are  likewise  here. 
O  man,  fly  from  those  haunted  chambers, 
lock  their  doors  tight  and  never  open  them, 
and  perhaps  the  ghosts  will  starve  in  the 
dark  if  you  do  not  feed  them.  The  house  of 
clay  you  know  not.  Why  your  heart  beats 
you  know  not :  but  the  house  of  the  spirit  you 
know  very  well.  HOWT  many  thousand  times 

in  joy  or  weariness  have  your  feet  wandered 

237 


OF THE 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

through  it!  You  are  imprisoned  in  that  house, 
in  the  sense  that  you  cannot  escape  from  it. 
But  it  is  so  large,  so  free,  so  wonderfully 
adorned  with  strange  treasures,  that  it  seldom 
seems  to  you  like  a  prison  house.  When  it  is 
too  small  you  can  always  enlarge  it,  when 
it  is  too  poor  you  can  enrich  it;  and  yet  the 
new  unites  with  the  old  so  that  its  unity  is  not 
broken,  —  it  all  remains  one  house.  If  you 
cannot  get  out,  others  cannot  get  in.  You  have 
not  even  to  close  the  door.  Enter  it,  and  as 
far  as  the  outside  world  is  concerned  you  are 
as  much  alone  as  if  you  dwelt  in  the  universe. 
Nothing  is  there  but  what  you  have  put  there. 
It  represents  you  perfectly ;  it  contains  all  the 
thoughts  of  God  you  have  been  able  to  think, 
all  the  goodness  you  have  made  your  own, 
all  the  knowledge  you  have  been  able  to 
accumulate,  all  of  this  universe  you  have  been 
able  to  appropriate  up  to  the  hour  of  your 
death,  and  it  is  all  yours,  in  a  sense  in  which 

nothing  else  is  yours;  you  could  not  lose  it  if 

238 


ON   THE    SPIRITUAL    BODY 

you  would.  That  is  the  horror  of  it.  You  lock 
certain  doors;  you  resolve  never  to  enter 
those  chambers  again.  Some  day,  after  years, 
you  stumble  into  them  and  find  everything 
exactly  as  you  left  it.  In  all  those  years  no 
hand  has  been  present  to  disturb  anything. 

That  is  our  spiritual  house,  our  spiritual 
body,  in  which  we  shall  rise  and  which  we 
shall  wear  forever.  Is  this  not  in  strict  accord 
with  the  text,  "Be  not  deceived;  God  is  not 
mocked;  for  whatsoever  a  man  soweth  that 
shall  he  also  reap"?  We  may  have  deceived 
ourselves  about  this,  but  it  is  not  God  who  has 
deceived  us.  We  may  have  led  our  lives  with 
a  very  different  purpose,  but  what  we  have 
done  is  to  weave  a  garment  that  we  shall 
wear  forever.  We  shall  carry  into  that  world 
a  world  of  memories  that  represent  all  we  have 
been  able  to  carry  away  from  this  life,  all 
we  have  been,  and  done.  They  make  our 
spiritual  body.  Nothing  will  be  changed, 

only  the  inside  has  become  the  outside,  and 

239 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

we  are  seen  and  known  for  what  we  are. 
This  thought  is  both  beautiful  and  terrifying, 
—  terrifying  to  those  who  have  guilty  secrets 
to  conceal  that  they  cannot  conceal,  blessed 
beyond  words  to  those  pure  souls  who  long 
to  look  on  each  other's  hearts,  to  share  each 
other's  experiences,  to  live  each  other's  lives. 
Death  does  not  break  the  bond  that  unites 
us;  death  only  breaks  the  bond  that  separates 
us.  The  conscience  we  carry  with  us  into  the 
next  world  determines  our  lot  and  condition 
there.  Just  as  in  this  world  we  are  known  by 
our  features,  in  that  world  we  shall  be  known 
by  our  conscience.  Just  as  in  this  world  it  is 
our  physical  body  that  distinguishes  us  from 
every  human  being,  in  that  world  we  shall  be 
distinguished  by  our  spiritual  body.  There- 
fore, St.  Paul  said,  "One  star  differeth  from 
another  star  in  glory."  If  that  body  is  strong 
and  beautiful  we  shall  be  happy:  if  it  is  weak 
and  deformed  and  hideous  we  shall  be  miser- 
able. In  proportion  as  we  become  more 

240 


ON   THE    SPIRITUAL   BODY 

clearly  conscious  of  our  relation  to  God  we 
shall  certainly  feel  more  our  conformity  or 
our  opposition  to  Him.  Even  now  we  know  by 
the  warnings  of  conscience  whether  we  are 
acting  with  God  or  against  God,  whether  God 
is  with  us  or  against  us.  But  that  is  a  weak 
premonition  of  what  we  shall  soon  see  with 
our  eyes,  and  feel  with  every  part  of  our  being. 
The  clear  perception  of  our  relation  to  God 
will  dawn  on  us  like  a  great  light,  but  whether 
that  light  brings  us  the  joy  and  peace  of 
Heaven,  or  the  lurid  miseries  of  Hell,  depends 
on  what  it  reveals  in  us.  It  is  not  onlv  that 

« 

we  shall  be  rewarded  for  our  works.  We  are 
rewarded  by  our  works;  our  works  are  our 
reward.  We  have  already  many  warnings  of 
what  is  certainly  coming.  In  this  world  we 
are  all  scourged  by  our  memories.  Many 
things  please  us  at  first  that  do  not  please  us 
when  they  have  become  part  of  our  soul's 
house  of  our  permanent  recollections.  We 

judge  them  by  a  different  standard,  not  ac- 

241 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

cording  to  the  momentary  pleasure  or  pain 
they  have  given  us,  but  in  relation  to  our  whole 
life.  So  already  many  a  last  becomes  first  and 
the  first  last.  The  higher  the  soul,  the  better 
it  is  able  to  weigh  passing  objects  against  life 
as  a  whole.  The  great  mistake  Christians 
have  made  is  in  separating  the  next  world 
too  much  from  this.  That  is  why  the  most 
tremendous  conception  that  can  take  posses- 
sion of  the  heart  of  man  has  almost  no  power 
over  us.  Of  course,  if  the  next  world  stands 
in  no  relation  to  this,  if  it  is  impossible  for  us 
to  know  anything  about  it,  then  there  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  concern  ourselves  with 
it  one  way  or  the  other.  But  as  soon  as  we 
recognize  that  the  next  life  is  but  the  devel- 
opment of  this,  we  have  only  to  see  what  is 
permanent  in  this  life  and  toward  what 
it  is  actually  tending  to  enable  us  to  know  a 
great  deal  about  the  next  world.  Develop- 
ment never  destroys,  it  only  fulfils.  The  man 

who  in  this  world  has  cared  only  for  the  cul- 

242 


ON    THE   SPIRITUAL    BODY 

tivation  of  his  own  spirit  and  has  done  noth- 
ing for  the  world  will  find  himself  inwardly 
rich  and  outwardly  poor.  The  man  who  has 
done  much  for  the  world  but  has  neglected 
his  own  soul  will  be  outwardly  rich,  inwardly 
poor. 

Do  not  think  the  reward  or  the  punishment 
will  be  slight  because  in  this  world  your  con- 
science seldom  rewards  or  troubles  you.  Some- 
times in  the  blackest  soul  there  lurks  a  spark 
that  writh  the  extinction  of  sensuality  breaks 
into  live  flame  that  can  illuminate  our  inward 
world  with  the  brightness  of  Heaven,  or  that 
can  rage  within  us  devouring  and  burning 
until  it  has  burned  up  all  that  is  unwrorthy 
of  Heaven. 

Some  persons  think  that  at  the  judgment 
all  our  good  deeds  will  merely  be  weighed 
against  our  evil  deeds,  and  that  we  shall  be 
happy  or  miserable  according  to  which  weighs 
heavier.  If  our  good  deeds  are  heavier, 

our  evil  deeds  are  as  nothing,  and  vice  versa. 

243 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

They  are  wrong.  Every  good  deed  shall  have 
its  reward  in  happiness.  Every  evil  deed 
shall  pay  the  penalty  of  suffering.  It  cannot 
be  otherwise.  The  most  abandoned  sinner 
who  in  the  whole  course  of  his  life  did  but  one 
good  action  shall  by  no  means  lose  his  reward 
for  that. 

But  you  say,  in  all  this  what  becomes  of  the 
grace  of  God  ?  If  my  salvation  is  entirely  of 
my  own  making,  and  if  I  must  be  punished 
to  the  uttermost  for  my  wrong-doing,  I  will 
thank  myself  for  my  salvation  if  I  am  saved, 
but  I  will  not  thank  God.  The  answer  is  this: 
We  must  be  punished  for  our  evil  deeds.  The 
greater  the  sinner,  the  more  he  must  suffer 
before  his  sin  is  destroyed.  This  lies  in  the 
eternal  nature  of  good  and  evil  which  God 
cannot  change  except  by  destroying  Himself. 
Goodness  always  leads  to  happiness,  and  evil 
always  leads  to  misery.  This  is  God's  justice. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  God  does  not  punish 

us  for  the  sake  of  punishing  us,  but  that  the 

244 


ON    THE    SPIRITUAL    BODY 

evil  in  us  may  be  destroyed.  Then  we  shall 
be  happy.  In  this  respect  He  is  like  the  good 
physician  who  wounds  only  that  he  may  heal. 
God  might  have  left  us  alone  with  our  sin 
until  evil  had  destroyed  us,  but  that  He  will 
not  do.  Therefore  we  shall  be  saved  at  last 
by  the  grace  of  God,  and  by  nothing  else.  It 
is  not  a  matter  of  indifference,  then,  whether 
we  do  our  duty  for  the  love  of  God,  with 
God  before  our  eyes.  He  who  acts  con- 
sciously from  the  love  of  God  is  rewarded  by 
that  love  which  surpasses  all  other  rewards. 

In  this  world  man  leaves  many  a  good  work 
undone  because  it  costs  a  sacrifice.  He  excuses 
himself  by  saying,  That  is  not  my  duty.  But 
duty  or  not  duty,  every  good  work  done  in- 
creases our  happiness  and  blessedness;  and 
every  good  work  undone  leaves  its  gap. 

There  is  one  other  thing  I  wish  to  speak 
of:  the  folly  of  those  who  hope  to  escape  the 
evils  of  life  by  suicide.  There  are  two  kinds 

of  men  who  voluntarily  lay  down  their  lives. 

245 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

There  is  the  man  who  lays  down  his  life  to 
save  others,  or  in  the  discharge  of  duty;  and 
there  is  the  man  who  takes  his  life,  in  the  hope 
of  escaping  from  its  evils,  which  may  be  only 
temporary.  The  first  passes  into  the  next 
world,  strong  in  the  strength  of  that  supreme 
sacrifice.  He  has  conquered  his  suffering  in 
that  resolve.  The  second,  all  his  power  of 
resistance  broken  down,  sneaks  into  that  world 
a  shattered  and  a  broken  soul.  Alas  for  those 
who  twist  ropes  for  their  own  necks,  in  the  hope 
of  saving  themselves  from  this  life!  Hold  out 
in  all  the  misery  that  deserved  or  undeserved 
overwhelms  you  here,  and  there  shall  be  no 
misery  hereafter.  After  all,  you  can  commit 
suicide  but  once.  Are  you  sure  this  is  the  time 
to  do  it  ?  Are  you  sure  that  you  are  not  flying 
from  one  torture  chamber  to  another  worse 
torture  chamber,  from  which  you  cannot  fly 
until  you  have  paid  the  uttermost  farthing? 
Are  you  not  strong  enough,  hard  enough,  to 

bear  the  present  evil,  to  do  the  present  good  ? 

246 


ON    THE    SPIRITUAL    BODY 

Then  you  must  be  hardened,  though  it  be  by 
the  stroke  of  the  hammer,  until  you  are  strong 
enough,  for  do  the  good  and  bear  the  evil 
you  must,  whether  here  or  hereafter  makes 
no  difference.  Hold  out  a  little  longer  and 
you  will  certainly  overcome  the  evil  and  save 
yourself. 

The  spirits  of  the  departed  act  upon  us. 
There  is  no  doubt  about  that.  The  only 
question  is  whether  they  act  on  us  consciously 
or  unconsciously.  For  my  part,  I  prefer  to 
believe  that  they  act  consciously.  We  share 
with  these  spirits  innumerable  things,  and 
receive  from  them  much  that  we  think  we 
receive  from  ourselves.  Just  as  a  thousand 
memories  interpret  for  us  a  distant  landscape 
and  tell  us  that  that  patch  of  green  is  an  ancient 
forest,  and  that  silver  thread  a  mighty  river, 
and  that  small  hazy  peak  is  Mt.  Washington 
draped  in  clouds,  so  a  thousand  spirits  of  the 
former  world  interpret  for  us  humanity,  history, 

life   in  general,  which   but    for   them   would 

247 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

appear  to  us  absolutely  unintelligible.  It  is 
through  these  illuminating  intelligences  which 
in  their  generations  grasped  the  world,  com- 
prehended this  or  that  problem  of  human 
life,  that  the  world  shines.  It  is  in  their  light 
that  we  see  light.  The  longer  the  world  lasts 
the  brighter  this  light  becomes,  because  no 
torch  once  kindled  is  ever  extinguished,  and 
new  torches  are  constantly  lighted  at  the 
old.  As  we  study  the  history  of  the  nations, 
or  fathom  the  height  and  depth  of  human 
wisdom  or  grasp  some  new  aspect  of  human 
nature,  or  enter  the  world  of  art,  in  reality  we 
are  only  holding  communion  with  the  spirits 
of  the  departed,  receiving  from  them  what 
we  did  not  know,  and  doing  in  their  strength 
what  we  could  not  do  in  our  own.  Darwin  is 
dead,  but  has  his  soul  left  this  world  ?  I  do 
not  think  so.  I  see,  at  all  events,  that  his  great 
thought  is  alive,  that  it  is  growing  and  extend- 
ing itself  into  domains  of  life  into  which  Darwin 

himself  never  penetrated,  that  it  is  germinating 

248 


ON    THE    SPIRITUAL    BODY 

and  bearing  fruits  in  fields  where  Darwin  never 
dreamed  of  applying  it.  Some  will  say  the 
thought  is  alive,  but  the  thinker  is  not  alive. 
That  seems  to  me  incredible.  That  thought 
was  Darwin's  soul,  bone  of  his  bone,  and  flesh 
of  his  flesh.  How  is  it  possible  that  the  ex- 
pression should  be  so  strong  and  permanent 
that  millions  of  men  shall  build  on  it  for  ages, 
and  the  soul  that  gave  it  birth  should  instantly 
lapse  into  nothing.  But  if  his  soul  is  alive  at 
all,  whatever  other  sphere  it  may  fill,  it  is 
certainly  alive  here  where  it  is  doing  its  work. 
Wherever  a  spirit  manifests  itself  with  power, 
there  it  is. 

This  is  the  only  view  that  gives  the  least 
meaning  to  one  of  the  most  fundamental  con- 
ceptions of  Christ,  and  to  His  most  solemn 
promises,  namely,  that  though  He  returned 
to  the  Father,  He  did  not  leave  this  earth;  yea, 
that  He  would  be  in  it,  always,  and  with 
his  disciples  even  to  the  end.  It  is  this  belief, 

I    confess,    that   gives    me    almost   my  whole 

249 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

sense  of  union  with  an  ever  living  and  ever 
present  Saviour.  If  it  were  not  for  this  belief, 
Jesus  would  fade  away  from  me  into  a  mere 
shadow  of  a  man,  or  a  God,  who  trod  this 
world  two  thousand  years  ago  and  then  dis- 
appeared. Such  a  memory  I  could  love  and 
admire,  but  he  would  never  be  to  me  my  living 
Brother,  my  ever  present  Master,  to  whose 
kind  eye  I  can  turn  in  all  my  doubts  and  diffi- 
culties, in  all  my  sadness  and  discouragement. 
Jesus  believed  this  so  implicitly  Himself,  and 
built  so  confidently  upon  it,  that  I  should  fear, 
if  He  were  mistaken  on  this  point,  He  might 
be  mistaken  elsewhere.  "Lo,  I  am  with  you 
always,"  He  said,  in  taking  leave  of  His  dis- 
ciples, "even  to  the  end  of  the  world."  "He 
that  receiveth  you  receiveth  me."  "Abide  in 
me,  and  I  in  you.  I  am  the  vine  and  ye  are 
the  branches."  "Where  two  or  three  are 
gathered  together  in  my  name,  there  am  I." 
Many  think  of  Christ  merely  as  a  departed 

being,  as  a  God  or  man  who  once  lived  in  the 

250 


ON   THE   SPIRITUAL   BODY 

world,  but  who  has  long  withdrawn  from  the 
sphere  of  earthly  activity  to  the  great  nether 
world  of  the  dead,  or  to  a  throne  on  high 
at  the  right  hand  of  God.  We  have  Christ 
among  us  no  more.  We  need  Him  no  more. 
We  have  indeed  His  remains,  we  are  living  on 
the  perfume  of  a  broken  vase,  and  divide  His 
inheritance  among  ourselves.  The  sayings  and 
the  treasures  of  faith,  hope,  and  love  which 
He  left  behind  Him,  they  are  our  inheritance 
we  that  have  taken  His  place  and  over  which 
strive  and  quarrel  in  His  name.  For  them 
we  are  indebted  to  Christ,  but  only  as  to  a 
man  of  the  past.  We  say  indeed  that  His  spirit 
lingers,  that  it  dwells  in  us  and  in  His  Church, 
but  we  do  not  mean  this  in  any  living  and  real 
sense,  for  He  has  taken  up  His  dwelling  place 
in  eternity,  and  if  any  one  believes  that  Christ 
is  really  present  here  and  now  in  his  heart 
and  in  his  life,  that  man  is  regarded  as  a 
mystic,  a  fanatic,  almost  as  a  fool. 

But  if  this  were  really  true,  then  Christianity 
251 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

would  be  but  a  hollow  form,  not  a  living, 
growing  organism.  We  should  be  united  in  a 
name,  in  a  cause,  but  only  externally.  On 
the  contrary,  Christ  holds  His  Church  together 
as  God  holds  the  world  together,  by  dwelling 
in  it.  Paul  regarded, the  Church,  the  congre- 
gation of  believers,  as  in  a  mysterious  but  real 
sense  forming  the  very  body  of  the  Lord, 
i.e.,  the  organism  in  which  His  soul  dwells. 
Otherwise  we  are  only  dividing  His  clothes 
among  ourselves,  for  Him  we  have  not. 

With  what  force  does  this  apply  to  the  Sacra- 
ment of  the  Communion  of  Christ's  body  and 
blood  ?  What  does  it  mean  to  us  ?  By  some, 
I  fear,  it  is  regarded  almost  as  an  act  of  magic. 
Certain  words  are  read  by  the  priest  over  the 
bread  and  wine,  and  a  miracle  is  wrought 
in  those  elements.  They  are  transubstan- 
tiated, consubstantiated,  or  transformed  in 
some  other  way  into  new  substance.  I  shrink 
from  this  view,  because  it  is  materialistic  and 

magical;  still,  it  recognizes  a  present  Saviour, 

252 


ON   THE   SPIRITUAL   BODY 

and  up  to  that  point  I  accept  it.  But  to  a  great 
many  persons,  logically  to  all  who  believe  only 
in  an  absent  Saviour,  a  Saviour  only  at  the 
right  hand  of  God  in  Heaven,  this  feast  is  a 
mere  superstition,  or  if  not  a  mere  superstition, 
then  only  an  empty  sign,  a  figure  of  speech 
interpreted  too  literally.  But  that  which  has 
been  ridiculed  so  long  by  the  contemners 
of  Christianity  as  an  absurdity,  according  to 
the  view  I  am  trying  to  make  plain  is  no 
absurdity.  It  is  a  mystery  still,  but  not  an 
affront  to  human  reason.  Yes,  we  eat  Christ's 
body,  literally  in  the  sense  in  which  we  under- 
stand His  spiritual  body,  when  we  partake  of 
the  supper  which  He  ordained.  The  bread  and 
the  wine  indeed  become  the  body  and  blood 
of  Christ  to  him  who  receives  them  in  faith 
discerning  the  Lord's  body.  Christ,  who  is 
present  in  so  many  events  of  our  lives,  is 
present  here  in  a  higher  sense.  The  more 
we  realize  his  presence  the  nearer  we  draw  to 

Him:   the  more  present  He  is,  the  nearer  He 

253 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

draws  to  us.  Without  this  conscious  desire 
of  union  with  Jesus,  without  faith,  the  bread 
and  the  wine,  as  all  the  Fathers  of  the  Church 
have  confessed,  remain  mere  flour  and  the 
juice  of  the  grape:  but  to  the  loving  and 
believing  heart  they  are  the  body  and  blood  of 
Christ.  They  unite  us  to  Him  in  a  purely 
spiritual  sense.  Christ  is  present.  Christ 
comes  to  us.  Christ  enters  into  us. 

Lastly,  this  thought  comforts  me  much  in 
thinking  of  those  I  have  lost.  I  cannot  be- 
lieve that  the  dead  are  infinitely  far  away  from 
us,  in  some  distant  world;  I  believe  they  are 
near  us,  and  that  the  more  earnestly  and  lov- 
ingly we  think  of  them,  the  nearer  they  draw. 
In  the  light  of  God  they  live  a  life  a  thousand 
times  more  real  than  when  here  below  they 
wrestled  with  feeble  strength  to  live  the  divine 
life,  to  bear  the  divine  will.  "Blessed  are 
the  dead  who  die  in  the  Lord.  Amen,  saith 
the  Spirit;  for  they  rest  from  their  labors, 

and  their  works  do  follow  them." 

254 


In  Gott  ruht  meine  Seele; 
Es  sei  das  letzte  Wort; 
Ob  fern  vom  ird'schen  Hafen, 
Ich  kann  doch  ruhig  schlafen; 
Er  ist  mein  ew'ger  Port. 

FECHNEB. 


255 


CHAPTER  XIII 

IMMORTALITY   AND   THE    BRAIN 

To  restate  my  arguments:  1.  I  believe  the 
New  Testament  doctrine  of  the  resurrection 
of  the  body,  and  also  the  express  declaration 
of  Jesus  and  Saint  Paul  that  the  body  that 
is  raised  is  altogether  spiritual.  That  to  me 
is  the  cardinal  truth  of  the  resurrection  of  the 
body. 

2.  I  believe  that  just  as  in  this  world  the 
soul  has  an  outer  house  in  the  physical  body 
in  which  it  lives  and  by  which  it  acts  on  the 
world,  so  it  has  also  an  inner  house  from  which 
it  cannot  escape,  —  that  inner  house  consist- 
ing solely  of  spiritual  elements,  of  thoughts, 
hopes,  affections,  in  a  word  of  the  memories 
of  a  lifetime.  We  are  constantly  adding  to 

this  spiritual  house,   and  yet  the  old  unites 

257 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

with  the  new,  so  that  its  unity  is  never  dis- 
turbed ;  it  still  remains  the  same  house. 

3.  Death,  which  I  regard  as  a  purely  phys- 
ical event  precisely  like  birth,  destroys  the 
physical  body;  but  the  spiritual  house  it  does 
not  touch.  The  animal  organism  being  de- 
stroyed forever,  the  soul  finds  itself  now  clad 
in  a  spiritual  body,  a  body  of  its  own  making, 
that  represents  perfectly  all  it  has  ever  known, 
or  felt,  or  suffered.  In  that  body  it  rises  and 
begins  its  new  life.  I  am  not  embarrassed  in 
speculating  where  the  soul  rises  to,  for  that 
body  being  purely  spiritual,  space  does  not 
exist  for  it. 

I  was  once  asked  what  is  the  most  impressive 
truth  that  ever  entered  my  mind.  After  a 
moment  I  said  --  "The  belief  that  I  can  never 
escape  from  myself."  I  know  that  I  am  not 
alone  in  this.  To  this  opinion  Buddha  con- 
verted one  fourth  of  the  human  race.  "All 
religions  and  all  men  in  the  world,"  said 

Buddha,  "I  divide  into  two  classes.     On  the 

258 


IMMORTALITY   AND    BRAIN 

one  side  I  place  all  those  who  believe  that  by 
praying  to  any  god  or  demon  they  can  escape 
the  consequences  of  their  own  actions;  and 
on  the  other  side  I  place  those  who  know  they 
can  never  escape  themselves."  Now  Buddha's 
philosophy  defeats  itself,  because  it  looks 
forward  to  the  final  extinction  of  the  individual 
soul  in  Nirvana.  But  this  Christian  concep- 
tion, borrowed  directly  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment, does  not  defeat  itself,  because  it  looks 
forward  to  the  eternal  life  and  preservation  of 
the  human  soul.  It  believes  that  this  world 
exists  for  the  human  soul,  and  unless  that  soul 
is  saved  alive,  the  world  has  no  reason  for  its 
existence.  At  the  present  time  the  world  has 
only  two  philosophies  worth  mentioning.  One 
is  the  philosophy  of  pantheism,  that  sacrifices 
the  soul  of  man  to  the  blind  processes  of 
nature;  the  other  is  the  philosophy  of  a 
personal  God  and  immortality.  Evolution 
is  still  in  doubt  to  which  of  these  hostile 

camps  it  owes  its  allegiance;    for  in  spite  of 

259 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

the  able  efforts  of  John  Fiske  and  Lyman 
Abbott,  the  religious  philosophy  of  evolution 
has  not  yet  been  written.  That  work  will 
require  the  eagle  eye  and  the  colossal  strength 
of  a  greater  than  Darwin.  It  may  seem  that 
a  philosophy  on  this  subject  is  of  no  importance 
because  so  few  persons  read  or  understand 
philosophy.  We  have  only  to  look  to  India, 
cursed  time  out  of  mind  by  the  nightmare 
of  pantheism  and  reincarnation,  to  see  what 
wretchedness  an  evil  philosophy  can  inflict 
on  human  life.  I  venture  to  say  that  in  no 
country  whose  real  leaders  of  thought  belittle 
the  human  soul  and  deny  its  future  existence 
and  its  moral  responsibility  have  the  people 
proved  themselves  capable  of  freedom  and  of 
great  achievements.  I  think  we  are  not 
without  danger  in  this  respect.  Evolution  has 
taught  us  too  well  the  lesson  of  comparing  our- 
selves with  the  animals.  But  once  convince 
man  that  he  is  an  animal,  and  he  will  live 

like    an    animal.      As    Emerson    said  -    "If 

260 


IMMORTALITY   AND    BRAIN 

the  Devil  is  my  father,  I  will  live  from  the 
Devil."  For  two  thousand  years  Christianity 
has  been  trying  to  convince  man  that  he  is 
the  son  of  God. 

Now  it  is  an  astonishing  thing  that  up  to 
this  time  every  attempt  to  establish  the  im- 
mortality of  the  soul  has  been  so  weak.  We 
believe,  but  in  the  face  of  a  thousand  appar- 
ently hostile  facts  we  should  like  to  have  a 
confirmation  of  our  belief.  It  may  lie  in  the 
very  nature  of  the  case  that  this  confirmation 
will  never  be  forthcoming.  Faith  in  immor- 
tality may  always  remain  one  of  those  chival- 
rous beliefs  which  man  feels  that  he  owes  to 
God  and  himself;  and  yet  we  cannot  help 
hoping  that  at  last  the  great,  illuminating 
wrord  will  be  spoken. 

Most  attempts  to  establish  the  truth  of 
immortality  have  proved  too  much  or  too  little. 
What  advantage  is  there  in  proving,  as  Leib- 
nitz proved,  that  the  soul  is  a  monad,  a  unit, 

an  atom  without  parts  ?    Who  wants  to  be  an 

261 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

atom  without  parts  ?  Such  a  soul  cannot  be 
destroyed,  simply  because  there  is  nothing 
in  it.  For  my  part,  I  had  as  lief  be  a  mathe- 
matical point.  Other  writers  who  have  wished 
to  save  more  have  done  so  at  the  expense  of 
denying  the  soul's  real  relations  with  the 
body.  Their  physiology  is  the  physiology  of 
the  middle  ages.  In  the  face  of  the  facts  of 
modern  science  they  despair  of  saving  the 
soul;  so  they  think  it  best  to  deny  those  facts. 
They  pretend  that  the  body's  relations  with 
the  soul  are  very  slight  and  superficial,  that 
the  human  spirit  is  the  body's  guest  or  tenant, 
or  prisoner,  or  anything  but  its  immortal  soul. 
Even  those  Christian  writers  who  hold  to 
the  belief  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body  have 
embarrassed  themselves  and  almost  ruined 
their  cause  by  abandoning  the  doctrine  of  the 
New  Testament  and  by  looking  for  the  resur- 
rection of  a  material  body  of  flesh  and  bones. 
As  long  as  the  constant  waste  and  renewal  of 

the  body  were  not  known,  the  full  absurdity 

262 


IMMORTALITY    AND    BRAIN 

of  this  doctrine  did  not  appear,  though  even 
the  Fathers  of  the  Church  were  troubled  by 
the  growth  of  the  hair  and  nails,  which  they 
felt  would  be  too  long,  and  yet  they  did  not 
dare  think  of  cutting  them  off.  But  the  mo- 
ment we  consider  the  vast  number  of  particles 
which  in  the  whole  course  of  our  lives  have 
made  the  body,  we  see  that  unless  we  are  to 
rise  larger  than  elephants,  larger  than  houses, 
some  must  be  sacrificed.  Which  shall  it  be? 
If  we  are  to  rise  in  the  bodies  in  which  we  died, 
we  shall  all  rise  sick  men.  The  whole  concep- 
tion of  a  physical  resurrection  is  so  surrounded 
by  impossibilities  and  so  shocking  to  good 
sense  that  I  gladly  abandon  it  to  anyone  who 
wishes  to  take  it  up;  all  the  more  gladly 
because  it  is  absolutely  opposed  to  the  teaching 
of  Christ  and  Saint  Paul.  We  shall  not  need 
these  bodies  in  our  new  life,  and  we  cannot 
take  them  with  us.  It  is  the  destruction  of 
the  old  home,  of  the  old  world,  that  admits 

us  to  the  new.    But  on  the  other  hand  I  do  not 

263 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

rob  the  soul  of  one  of  its  real  possessions. 
According  to  this  belief,  the  soul  carries  with 
it  into  the  next  world  all  that  ever  belonged 
to  it.  I  am  not  forced  to  deny  the  intimacy  of 
the  relations  of  the  soul  and  the  body.  I 
believe  that  for  every  event  in  the  soul  there  is 
a  corresponding  event  in  the  body.  The  closer 
the  relation,  the  better  the  argument  holds. 

And  now,  without  further  preliminary,  let 
me  present  to  you  a  strange  fact.  Before  we 
say  anything  more  of  the  life  of  the  soul  here- 
after, let  us  look  for  a  moment  at  its  life  here. 

Let  us  suppose  that  you  are  now  fifty  years 
old.  How  do  you  know  that  you  are  fifty  years 
old  ?  I  mean  by  that,  what  proof  have  you 
that  you  have  existed  so  long?  Think  of  the 
changes  that  have  taken  place  in  all  those 
years  in  your  soul.  Once  you  were  a  little, 
ignorant,  naughty  child.  What  have  you  now 
in  common  with  that  child's  soul,  whose  emo- 
tions it  is  now  impossible  for  you  to  recall? 

Think  of  the  gap  of  time,  the  changes,  the 

264 


IMMORTALITY   AND    BRAIN 

sufferings,  the  experiences  that  separate  you 
from  that  little  unconscious  soul;  and  yet 
you  have  no  hesitation  in  affirming  that  that 
child's  soul  was  your  soul.  In  all  these  years 
it  has  changed,  but  it  has  not  lost  its  identity. 
There  is  not  a  point  at  which  you  can  say  - 
"Here  the  old  soul  ended,  and  a  new  soul  be- 
gan." On  the  contrary,  as  the  years  pass,  you 
see  that  soul  becoming  more  full  of  personality, 
more  identified  with  your  present  self.  Of 
the  first  years  you  remember  nothing.  You 
cannot  imagine  how  that  infant  thought  or 
felt.  You  cannot  identify  yourself  with  it  at 
all.  But  now  as  you  follow  the  little  stream 
down  its  course,  you  begin  to  recognize  familiar 
objects.  In  a  vague,  half -amused,  half -pensive 
way  you  can  imagine  how  the  schoolboy,  the 
student,  the  lover,  the  young  husband  thought 
and  felt.  You  can  identify  yourself  to  a  cer- 
tain extent  with  him.  You  begin  to  feel  a 
certain  responsibility  for  his  conduct.  Still 

the  identity  is  far  from  complete.     Much  of 

265 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

that  schoolboy,  that  student,  that  lover,  that 
young  husband,  is  a  mystery  to  you.  Heaven 
forbid  that  you,  a  grave  man  of  fifty,  should 
feel  and  act  as  he  felt  and  acted.  Still,  with 
every  passing  year  the  resemblances  become 
more  striking,  and  the  differences  slighter. 
A  long  series  of  images  is  presented  to  you, 
each  more  like  yourself,  the  last  of  which  is 
identical  with  your  soul  at  this  moment.  That 
is  how  you  know  you  are  fifty  years  old. 

You  have  hardly  got  over  wondering  at  the 
strangeness  of  this,  when  the  thought  flashes 
on  you  that  a  precisely  identical  process  has 
been  taking  place  in  your  body.  You  do  not 
need  a  physiologist  to  tell  you  that  the  stately 
body  of  the  man  of  fifty,  weighing  two  hundred 
pounds,  is  not  the  body  of  the  infant  weighing 
ten  or  twelve  pounds.  The  size  is  different, 
the  proportions  are  different,  the  expression  of 
the  face  is  different.  If  you  saw  a  picture  of 
yourself  for  the  first  time,  taken  when  you  were 

one  year  old,  you  would  not  recognize  it.    How 

266 


IMMORTALITY    AND    BRAIN 

many  outward  changes  must  that  body  under- 
go before  it  is  identical  with  the  body  you 
wear  to-day.  But  if  we  look  a  little  deeper, 
we  shall  see  that  still  more  profound  inward 
changes  have  taken  place.  It  is  not  only  that 
the  form  of  the  body  has  been  changed;  its 
substance  has  been  transformed,  not  once 
but  many  times.  Of  the  substance  that  com- 
posed the  body  of  the  child  not  one  particle  no\v 
remains.  How  many  times  that  body  has  been 
remade  from  head  to  foot  I  do  not  know. 
Some  persons  say  once  in  seven  years.  Shake- 
speare speaks  of  the  "too  solid  flesh,"  but  in 
reality  the  flesh  is  not  very  solid.  It  is  in  a 
state  of  unceasing  flux,  particles  united  to-day, 
particles  detached  to-morrow.  But  if  all  has 
changed  --  size,  weight,  form,  proportion,  sub- 
stance —  what  remains  ?  How  can  you  insist, 
with  the  least  show  of  reason,  that  you  have 
had  the  same  body  all  your  life,  that  your  body 
at  this  moment  is  identical  with  the  body  in 

which  you  were  born  ? 

267 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

I  am  well  aware  that  up  to  this  point  this 
argument  may  seem  like  a  kind  of  foolish 
puzzle,  much  more  adapted  to  confuse  people 
than  to  throw  light  on  an  important  problem. 
Nevertheless,  where  I  stand  I  see  the  light 
breaking  only  a  few  steps  ahead  of  us.  If 
you  will  take  those  few  steps  with  me,  I  think 
you  will  see  it  too. 

The  reason,  then,  why  in  spite  of  the  enor- 
mous changes  body  and  soul  undergo  we  per- 
sist in  believing  that  we  have  the  same  body 
and  soul  through  life  is  that  each  change  is  the 
direct  result  of  all  that  has  gone  before.  Not 
a  cell  is  formed  in  the  body  that  is  not  the  child 
of  some  parent  cell.  Not  a  thought  arises  in 
the  soul  that  is  not  directly  linked  to  some 
former  thought.  The  old  elements  may  perish, 
but  their  results  remain.  There  is  no  break 
nor  gap  anywhere ;  our  personal  identity,  both 
of  soul  and  body,  consists  in  one  continued 
network,  one  unbroken  chain  of  causes  and 

effects.    Even  those  first  faint  glimmerings  of 

268 


IMMORTALITY   AND    BRAIN 

consciousness  that  you  have  wholly  forgotten 
were  not  without  their  effects  on  your  child- 
hood. Out  of  childhood  came  youth,  out  of 
youth  manhood;  and  so  their  effects  are  pre- 
served to  this  moment,  nothing  is  lost.  These 
two  streams,  the  life  of  the  soul  and  the  life 
of  the  body,  run  side  by  side.  For  every  turn 
in  the  one  there  is  a  turn  in  the  other;  for 
every  wave  in  the  one  there  is  a  wave  in  the 
other;  and  yet  they  never  mingle,  not  one  drop 
of  one  stream  ever  passes  into  the  other.  The 
law  of  the  body  is  wholly  physical;  the  law  of 
the  mind  is  wholly  spiritual.  Cells  produce 
nothing  but  cells,  movements  produce  nothing 
but  movements,  thoughts  produce  nothing  but 
thoughts.  When  a  cell  dies,  it  is  replaced  by 
a  cell  it  has  produced;  when  a  thought  is 
extinguished,  it  is  extinguished  by  another 
thought.  So  the  unity  is  never  broken.  I  do 
not  blame  a  physiologist  for  being  a  materi- 
alist so  far  as  he  confines  himself  to  his  pro- 
fession. With  the  physicians  it  is  somewhat 

269 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

different.  He  should  be  the  physician  of  the 
whole  man,  of  the  soul  as  well  as  of  the 
body. 

The  two  processes  are  absolutely  identical. 
At  each  step  the  new  body  is  the  result  of  all 
the  changes  of  the  old  body,  and  the  new  soul 
is  the  result  of  all  the  changes  of  the  old  soul. 
Suddenly  death  strikes  us.  What  happens 
then  to  the  body  we  very  well  know.  It  goes 
on  producing  effects,  only  in  a  new  direction. 
The  process  of  evolution  has  become  a  pro- 
cess of  dissolution.  Not  one  of  its  particles 
is  lost,  not  one  of  its  causes  fails  to  produce  an 
effect.  But  what  becomes  of  the  soul  ?  It  also 
is  a  cause  and  the  result  of  many  preceding 
causes,  the  mightiest  cause  that  exists  upon 
this  earth.  But  unless  the  soul  lives  on  in  its 
own  sphere  and  continues  to  produce  fruits 
after  its  kind,  then  in  this  one  case  in  the  entire 
universe  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  is  broken; 
for,  after  the  soul  has  left  the  body,  effects  we 

see  none.     But  you  say  another  thing  may 

270 


IMMORTALITY    AND    BRAIN 

happen  to  it.  The  body,  it  is  true,  does  not 
cease  to  exist;  but  it  ceases  to  exist  as  a  body, 
as  a  living  organism.  It  is  now  dissolved  and 
reabsorbed  in  the  great  world  out  of  which  it 
issued;  and  so  may  the  soul  be  absorbed  and 
dissolved  in  a  still  greater  world.  Ah,  there  is 
the  difference  between  the  soul  and  the  body! 
That  which  is  within  the  soul  cannot  dissolve 
it,  because  it  is  the  soul  itself;  and  that  which 
is  without  the  soul  cannot  affect  it  at  all  until 
it  has  got  within  it  and  become  part  of  it. 
(Whether  the  soul  can  be  destroyed  by  its  own 
evil  I  am  not  now  considering.)  Therefore, 
what  have  we  to  fear  ?  The  soul,  at  all  events, 
cannot  be  crushed  by  a  stone,  or  drowned  in 
the  water,  or  dissolved  by  oxygen.  All  these 
things  do  not  touch  it.  But  at  the  moment  of 
death,  the  soul  is  the  result  of  all  it  has  ever 
been.  If  it  escapes,  it  escapes  with  all  its 
treasures.  As  time  passes,  it  can  only  ac- 
cumulate new  treasures  and  become  wiser, 

more  spiritual,  more  individual. 

271 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

One  of  the  arguments  of  Professor  Ostwald, 
most  fatal  to  immortality,  is  this:  after  death, 
man  must  either  remain  fixed  and  changeless, 
or  he  must  go  on  changing.  In  the  former  case, 
our  immortality  would  be  about  as  pleasant 
as  that  of  a  Siberian  mammoth  frozen  up  in 
a  block  of  ice.  In  the  latter  case,  immortality 
reduces  itself  to  nothing,  because  a  being  con- 
stantly changing  would  soon  cease  to  be  the 
same  being.  I  agree  with  Professor  Ostwald 
as  to  the  first  alternative,  but  not  as  to  the 
second.  If  these  changes  were  sudden  and 
cataclysmic  in  their  nature,  if  they  destroyed 
the  continuity  of  consciousness,  we  should 
indeed  cease  to  exist.  But  if  every  change  is 
the  result  of  all  that  has  gone  before,  if  the  new 
life  of  the  soul  is  but  the  unfolding  of  the  old 
life,  we  find  in  such  a  process  of  development 
the  very  condition  which  has  confronted  us 
here,  in  which  thus  far  we  have  had  no  diffi- 
culty in  preserving  our  sense  of  identity.  As 

our  spiritual  nature  develops  and   integrates 

272 


IMMORTALITY    AND    BRAIN 

we  may  believe  that  this  process  may  go  on 
indefinitely  without  the  danger  to  us  of  losing 
ourselves,  just  as  the  massive  oak  remains 
through  centuries  the  same  plant  which  once 
slumbered  in  the  acorn. 

As  a  swan  swimming  on  the  bosom  of  a  lake 
gives  rise  to  innumerable  waves  which  are 
continuous,  so  that  the  first  is  united  to  the 
last,  so  man  passes  through  this  world.  How- 
ever broken  his  life  and  influence  may  seem, 
it  produces  one  continuous  series  of  effects. 
Now  the  swan  has  risen  on  his  wings  and  has 
settled  on  a  distant  portion  of  the  lake.  Is  his 
path  broken  ?  Not  at  all.  Between  the  two 
series  of  waves  in  the  water  is  a  series  of  waves 
in  the  air  which  unites  them.  So  man's  path 
through  life  is  all  one,  and  the  waves  he 
launches,  no  matter  how  far  they  may 
spread,  form  one  continuous  series  of  influ- 
ences which  all  belong  to  him,  and  which  we 
shall  some  day  trace  from  the  end  to  the  be- 
ginning. 

273 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

The  chief  difficulty  is  and  always  will  be 
how  our  spiritual  life  can  go  on  without  a  brain, 
in  which  all  our  thoughts  and  memories  are 
contained.  You  tell  me  of  the  curious  little 
box  in  which  our  treasure  is  stored,  a  piece  of 
mechanism  so  wonderful,  so  subtly  planned 
that  it  sometimes  seems  to  be  the  treasure  itself. 
You  remind  me  how  the  soul  grows  with  the 
brain's  growth,  and  how  it  suffers  with  the 
brain's  disease,  and  you  ask  me  where  I  expect 
to  find  another  chest  capable  of  holding  this 
subtle  treasure  of  thought,  and  even  if  I  find 
one,  how  I  expect  to  transfer  my  quicksilver 
treasure  from  one  chest  to  another.  And  I 
admit  at  once  I  have  no  expectation  of  find- 
ing another  such  chest,  with  its  ten  thousand 
receptacles  perfectly  adapted  to  my  every 
thought  and  feeling.  You  ask,  then,  how  is 
it  possible  for  the  soul  to  preserve  the  memories 
that  form  its  spiritual  house  without  a  brain  ? 
Let  me  say  in  the  first  place  that  we  do  not 

know  that  this  is  impossible.     We  only  know 

274 


IMMORTALITY    AND    BRAIN 

that  in  this  life  consciousness  and  memory 
are  lodged  in  the  brain.  It  would  be  impos- 
sible for  the  unborn  child  to  imagine  itself  able 
to  exist  except  under  the  conditions  of  the  first 
life;  and  so  indeed  it  would  be  impossible. 
But  in  the  second  life  those  conditions  are  not 
necessary;  they  are  ended  by  birth;  and  it  is 
the  destruction  of  the  old  organs  that  admits 
the  child  into  the  new  life.  So  it  may  be  the 
destruction  of  our  old  brain  that  admits  us 
to  our  eternal  life.  The  difference  is  that  here 
we  look  on  the  unborn  child  from  the  side  of 
life,  and  we  look  on  the  future  condition  of  the 
soul  from  the  side  of  death.  That,  I  admit, 
is  a  great  difference. 

I  am  aware  that  this  is  an  important  ques- 
tion, a  question  by  which  many  persons  will 
accept  or  reject  our  whole  view  of  immortality. 
It  is  true  that  we  can  give  no  conclusive  answer 
to  this  question,  for  the  very  reason  I  have 
stated.  We  view  the  whole  subject  from  the 

side  of  death,  not  from  the  side  of  life.     But 

275 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

let  me  give  you  one  or  two  examples  of  changes 
that  we  have  seen,  which  may  make  it  more 
easy  to  believe.  When  you  see  the  seed-corn 
bursting  and  falling  to  pieces  in  order  to  give 
room  for  the  development  of  the  new  plant, 
do  you  say  that  it  has  existed  for  no  purpose  ? 
Has  it  not  existed  for  that  very  purpose,  to  give 
life  to  the  new  plant?  Neither  has  the  brain 
existed  for  no  purpose,  but  perhaps  it  has  ex- 
isted for  this  very  purpose  —  to  give  birth  to 
the  new  intelligence.  So  long  as  the  old  brain 
exists,  we  must  remain  the  old  men.  When  it 
suffers  we  suffer,  even  to  the  point  of  losing  our 
intelligence.  In  old  age  it  is  worn  out.  Then 
it  is  time  for  us  to  leave  it,  just  as  once  before 
we  left  a  home  no  longer  suited  to  our  habita- 
tion. More  than  one  materialist  has  compared 
the  brain  to  a  harp,  and  consciousness  and 
memory  to  the  music  following  from  its  strings. 
When  the  harp  is  shattered  by  the  hand  of 
death,  they  say  that  that  is  the  end  of  the 

music.     The  figure  is  considered  a  good  one 

276 


IMMORTALITY   AND    BRAIN 

on  this  account ;  —  it  is  the  vibration  of  the 
strings  that  is  the  cause  of  the  music,  and  it 
is  the  vibration,  they  say,  in  the  cells  of  the 
brain  that  is  the  cause  of  thought.  Here  is  an 
example  of  how  easy  it  is  to  be  deceived  in 
these  subjects.  Both  these  statements  are 
entirely  false.  The  vibration  of  the  strings 
gives  rise  only  to  vibrations  in  the  air.  The 
music  exists  only  in  our  consciousness,  not  in 
the  air,  —  as  the  thought  exists  only  in  our 
mind,  not  in  the  brain.  But  let  us  accept  the 
figure,  crude  as  it  is,  and  see  if  it  is  as  danger- 
ous to  our  claims  as  they  think.  The  tone 
of  the  harp  sounds  on  the  air,  and  you  hear  it. 
The  harp  is  shattered ;  —  for  a  moment  you 
hear  the  music,  then  you  hear  it  no  longer. 
But  one  standing  a  little  further  off  still  hears 
it;  but  now,  he  too  hears  it  no  more.  Has  the 
strain  then  ceased  to  vibrate  ?  Not  at  all.  It 
has  only  passed  beyond  the  sphere  of  your 
quarter-of-an-inch  ear.  Were  your  ear  as 

large  as  the  space  those  vibrations  now  occupy, 

277 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

or  were  you  able  to  follow  them  as  they  go 
through  the  air,  —  and  not  through  the  air 
only,  but  through  water,  through  stone  walls, 
through  thick  and  thin,  you  would  still  hear 
them  singing  on  their  way  to  the  stars.  Were 
those  vibrations  self-conscious,  like  our  intelli- 
gence, they  would  still  hear  themselves.  So 
this  image,  which  so  many  doubters  have 
triumphantly  urged,  need  not  frighten  us  in  the 
least. 

I  may  mention  next  Professor  James' 
parable  of  the  boiling  kettle.  Professor  James, 
in  his  splendid  lecture  on  Human  Immortality, 
has  enriched  this  discussion  with  a  new  figure 
and  has  raised  another  difficulty.  It  is  the 
figure  of  the  boiling  tea-kettle.  Its  meaning 
of  course  is  very  plain.  The  kettle  is  the 
human  body;  fire  is  the  forces  of  life,  main- 
tained by  food,  and  so  forth;  the  seething 
water  is  the  thrilling,  vibrating  human  brain, 
and  the  stream  pouring  out  of  the  nose  of  the 

kettle  is  the  product  of  that  brain,  all  that  poor 

278 


IMMORTALITY    AND    BRAIN 

man  calls  thought  and  soul.  As  long  as  the 
fire  burns  and  the  water  boils  the  soul  mani- 
fests itself  in  a  little  steam  which  quickly  loses 
itself  in  the  great  world.  But  when  the  fire 
of  life  cools,  there  is  no  more  steam ;  and  even 
if  the  fire  of  life  is  not  cooled,  after  all  the  water 
in  the  kettle  has  been  converted  into  steam 
it  will  burst  the  pot.  This  appears  to  be  a 
rather  crude  figure,  because  it  implies  that  the 
substance  of  the  brain  is  turned  into  thought, 
as  the  substance  of  water  is  turned  into  steam. 
But  let  us  accept  it  and  see  if  it  is  as  dangerous 
as  many  persons  have  imagined. 

In  the  first  place,  that  steam  remains  as 
indestructible  as  the  substance  of  the  iron 
kettle.  It  is  true  you  cannot  grasp  it,  but 
neither  can  you  destroy  it.  Diffuse  it  to  the 
four  winds,  scatter  it  as  widely  as  you  can, 
and  still  it  is  there.  For  every  unit  of  water 
there  remains  a  unit  of  steam.  In  the  next 
place,  if  you  regard  the  vanished  steam  as  an 

image  of  the  soul  after  death,  I  must  admit 

279 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

that  the  water  has  undergone  a  transformation 
which  might  be  compared  with  death;  but  in 
consequence  of  that  transformation,  the  steam 
is  lighter,  freer,  more  expansive  than  the  water 
was,  and  it  can  do  a  thousand  things  which 
the  w^ater  cannot  do.  It  forms  clouds,  it  paints 
the  eastern  and  the  western  heavens,  it  reveals 
itself  in  rain,  thunder,  and  lightning ;  it  wields 
a  force  that  can  disrupt  mountains. 

There  is  one  thing,  however,  you  tell  me  it 
has  not  done.  It  has  not  preserved  its  in- 
dividuality, but  it  has  run  together  with  all 
other  steam  and  has  lost  itself.  How  about  the 
soul  ?  It  is  very  true ;  the  steam  is  uniform 
and  mingles  with  all  other  steam;  but  you 
forget  that  the  water  which  produced  it  is  also 
uniform  and  mingles  when  it  can  with  all 
other  water.  But  the  peculiarity  of  human 
souls  is  that  they  are  not  uniform ;  every  soul 
in  the  world  differs  from  every  other  soul. 
Therefore,  souls  do  not  run  together,  and  the 

tea-kettle  is  no  more  dangerous  than  the  violin. 

280 


IMMORTALITY   AND    BRAIN 

So  far  as  they  prove  anything,  they  point  in 
the  direction  of  our  hopes. 

When  the  brain  is  injured  in  this  world, 
we  suffer.  But  if  the  injury  is  so  great  that 
this  life  ends,  that  is  the  end  of  the  injury. 
It  cannot  follow  us  into  the  next  life,  since  the 
greatest  injury  to  the  old  life,  which  is  death, 
is  the  very  thing  that  makes  the  new  life 
possible.  This  is  a  consolation  to  those  who 
have  insane  or  weak-minded  friends.  Insanity 
is  a  disease  of  the  brain,  and  it  will  cease  when 
the  brain  ceases.1  You  imagine  that  because 
the  mind  shares  the  weakness  of  old  age,  it  is 
a  sign  that  it  is  about  to  cease  to  exist.  But 
you  might  as  well  infer  that  because  the  mount- 
ing pendulum  of  a  clock  moves  slowly  and 
heavily,  and  almost  stands  still  when  it  reaches 


1  A  well-known  alienist  recently  told  a  friend  of  mine  that  two 
insane  persons  who  had  long  been  under  his  care  recovered  their 
reason  shortly  before  death,  and  that  in  this  lucid  interval  they 
mentioned  many  events  and  sayings  which  at  the  time  apparently 
produced  not  the  slightest  impression  upon  their  disordered 
intellects.  This  raises  questions  with  which  at  present  we  are 
unable  to  grapple. 

281 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

the  limit  of  its  vibration,  it  is  about  to  stop; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  just  preparing  to  take  a 
new  stroke. 

Let  me  present  another  analogy  which  is 
more  than  an  analogy.  However  complex 
and  subtle  the  human  brain  may  be,  it  is 
hardly  to  be  compared  with  the  spiritual  life 
of  the  world,  that  marvelous  and  living  thing 
which  expresses  itself  in  religion,  science,  art, 
music,  poetry,  family  life,  etc.  This  is  cer- 
tainly richer  and  more  complex  than  any  brain 
because  it  is  the  product  of  all  brains.  And 
yet  this  life  of  humanity  which  grows  from 
age  to  age  has  no  physical  organ,  no  brain  in 
which  it  lives.  I  know  that  it  originated  in 
many  brains,  but  it  did  not  die  when  those 
brains  perished.  It  is  so  much  alive  that  it 
gives  life  to  every  man  born  into  the  world 
and  spins  into  the  soul  of  every  new  child  the 
old  knowledge,  the  old  faith,  the  old  doubts. 

The  view  I  have  taken  preserves  in  full  our 

moral  responsibility;   we  shall  reap  to  the  last 

282 


IMMORTALITY   AND    BRAIN 

ear  the  harvest  we  have  sown.  We  can  escape 
many  things  in  this  world;  but  ourselves  we 
cannot  escape.  We  carry  with  us  in  our  spirit- 
ual body  all  that  we  have  been.  Is  our  lot  in 
the  next  world  then  unchangeably  fixed  by 
the  condition  in  which  we  enter  it  ?  I  cannot 
believe  it.  The  very  argument  by  which  we 
have  come  to  another  life  is  an  argument  of 
progress.  Eternity  is  long,  and  this  life  very 
short.  What  should  we  think  of  a  father  who 
sent  his  son  to  school  for  one  half -day,  to  pre- 
pare him  for  the  duties  and  responsibilities 
of  a  whole  life  ?  But  that  half -day  is  long  in- 
deed, in  comparison  with  this  life  measured 
against  eternity.  In  the  image  of  Christ  and 
Saint  Paul,  the  buried  seed  bears  grain  above 
for  the  bread  of  heaven. 

And  yet,  even  if  we  regard  the  next  life  as 
a  new  opportunity,  it  makes  much  difference 
how  we  enter  that  life.  In  all  life  the  beginning 
counts  for  much.  However  long  and  glorious 

the  development,  it  is  conditioned  strictly  by 

283 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

the  capacity  of  the  germ  that  develops.  With 
inorganic  matter  it  is  entirely  different.  Cut 
a  piece  of  gold  in  two,  and  you  can  unite  it 
again  so  that  the  former  division  is  not  per- 
ceptible ;  it  is  impossible  to  tell  whether  the 
gold  was  mutilated  yesterday,  or  in  the  days 
of  Julius  Caesar.  But  wound  a  young  tree, 
or  mutilate  a  young  animal,  and  they  will 
bear  the  marks  of  mutilation  as  long  as  they 
live.  Other  branches  may  be  put  forth,  other 
organs  may  be  developed;  but  those  once 
destroyed  are  destroyed  for  all  time.  The 
wound  heals,  but  the  scar  remains.  And  yet 
I  am  free  to  say  that  I  cannot  remember  ever 
to  have  known  a  man  whom  it  was  impossible 
to  imagine  better  in  a  better  environment, 
surrounded  by  those  who  love  him.  Well, 
Heaven  will  give  us  that  better  environment, 
and  though  it  may  be  long  ere  it  is  Heaven  to 
us,  and  though  we  must  suffer  much  before 
our  evil  is  destroyed,  yet  good  is  stronger  than 

evil  and  it  must  finally  prevail. 

284 


IMMORTALITY   AND    BRAIN 

In  this  world  we  see  the  great  thoughts  and 
deeds  of  men  purified  by  time.  Is  not  that  a 
sign  that  the  thinkers  and  doers  themselves 
are  growing  greater  and  purer?  And  yet 
it  is  not  only  the  great  and  famous  who  carry 
the  world  on  to  its  goal,  and  who  have  part 
in  the  general  consummation.  Renan  describes 
a  visit  to  a  forlorn  cemetery  outside  a  little 
town,  where  the  forgotten  dead  lay  buried 
under  ugly  tombstones,  some  fallen,  some  still 
standing,  on  which  their  whole  lives  were 
summed  up  in  two  dates,  birth  and  death.  The 
sight  affected  him  profoundly.  They  have 
gone,  he  thought,  with  unnumbered  genera- 
tions of  people  just  like  them  and  have  left 
nothing  to  show  that  they  were  once  men; 
the  night  of  forgetfulness  has  completely  over- 
whelmed them;  in  a  short  time  their  very 
names  will  be  forgotten  and  never  be  men- 
tioned, and  it  will  be  just  as  if  they  had  never 
lived.  Later,  having  learned  the  value  of  the 

humble  virtues  and  the  sweetness  of  human 

285 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

affections,  he  perceived  that  he  was  wrong. 
Those  simple  people,  he  thought,  are  still  en- 
joying life,  and  even  in  this  world  they  have 
not  perished,  for  they  helped  to  make  their 
little  city  what  it  is;  and  after  that  city  shall 
be  no  more,  France  will  be  here,  and  people 
will  say  that  was  a  noble  country;  and  after 
France  shall  be  no  more,  humanity  will  be 
here,  and  after  humanity  on  this  earth  shall  be 
no  more,  we  shall  all  live  in  the  vast  bosom  of 
God.  And  they  too  did  their  part,  though  it 
was  a  humble  part,  and  God  does  not  forget 
them,  though  men  may;  and  we  shall  see  the 
promise  fulfilled  to  the  letter,  that  not  a  cup 
of  cold  water  to  the  thirsty,  not  a  word  that 
has  contributed  to  the  moral  regeneration  of 
humanity,  shall  ever  lose  its  reward. 

Ich  bin  von  Gott  gewusst,  und  bin  dadurch  allein, 
Mein  Selbstbewusstsein  ist,  von  Gott  gewusst  zu  sein. 

Im  Gottbewusstsein  geht  nicht  mein  Bewusstsein  aus; 
Eingeht  es  wie  ein  Kind  in  seines  Vaters  Hans.1 

,  Die  Weisheit  des  Brahmanen. 

Th.  III.,  s.  119. 
286 


Then  shall  the  dust  return  to  the  earth  as  it  was,  and  the 
spirit  shall  return  unto  God  who  gave  it. 

ECCLESIASTES  XH-   7. 


287 


CHAPTER  XIV 

THE    SOUL   AND    DEATH 

WHEN  man  measures  his  little  personality 
against  the  unceasing  change  of  the  universe, 
what  reasonable  hope  can  he  have  that  al- 
though everything  else  passes  away,  he  re- 
mains ?  Even  if  the  soul  of  man  is  the  product 
of  a  higher  spirit,  the  Spirit  of  God,  does  not 
danger  lurk  for  him  in  that  very  circumstance, 
the  danger,  namely,  that  at  death  we  return 
to  that  boundless  sea  of  universal  Being,  out 
of  which  at  birth  we  arose  ?  We  know  how 
it  is  with  the  products  of  our  minds.  Our 
thoughts  emerge  out  of  the  unconscious  and 
they  sink  into  it  again.  Amid  the  incessant 
flow  of  ideas,  only  the  soul  itself  has  some 
permanence,  but  the  thoughts  of  man  perish. 

Is  it  otherwise  with  the  thoughts  of  God,  one 

289 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

of  which  I  am  ?  At  death  our  body  is  taken 
back  into  the  general  body  of  the  earth  out  of 
which  it  once  arose.  The  little  body  is  reab- 
sorbed  into  the  great.  The  great  body  endures, 
the  little  body  passes  away.  All  through  life 
the  body  has  borne  the  soul  as  a  faithful  beast 
bears  its  master.  At  death  the  weary  animal, 
having  completed  his  journey,  lies  down  and 
will  not  rise  again.  No  call  from  the  familiar 
voice,  no  whip,  no  spur  can  arouse  him  now. 
Can  the  soul  that  has  ridden  so  long  now  go 
on  foot?  Is  it  not  in  its  sphere  about  to 
share  its  faithful  servant's  fate?  How  can 
there  be  any  doubt  when  everything  points  in 
the  same  direction,  —  to  the  endurance  of  the 
whole,  to  the  evanescence  of  all  individual 
parts  ? 

So  the  thought  of  death,  as  the  extinction 
of  all  that  wre  call  life,  presses  upon  me. 
Against  this  great  tendency  in  nature,  the  keen 
little  reasons  of  man  seem  very  puny.  The 

arguments  by  which  men  seek  to  prove  the 

290 


THE    SOUL   AND    DEATH 

contrary  are  hard  to  grasp  and  easy  to  forget. 
These  great  facts,  however,  grasp  men:  the 
soul  remains,  though  its  thoughts  pass  away; 
the  body  remains,  for  a  little  while,  though  its 
particles  come  and  go;  the  earth  remains 
while  bodies  disappear.  At  all  events  God 
remains,  while  individual  forms  of  every  sort, 
thoughts,  bodies,  worlds,  suns,  perish. 

But  have  I  really  grasped  the  logic  of  these 
facts  ?  Is  the  analogy  between  the  fate  of  the 
soul  and  the  fate  of  the  body  a  true  analogy? 
In  one  important  instance  I  see  that  it  is  not. 
In  the  course  of  life  the  old  body  passes  away, 
not  once  but  many  times.  After  its  particles 
are  scattered  abroad  they  return  no  more. 
But  not  so  do  the  thoughts  of  my  mind  dis- 
appear. They  sink  into  unconsciousness, 
it  is  true,  but  they  rise  again,  either  volun- 
tarily or  through  some  involuntary  association, 
sleeping  or  waking.  I  often  surprise  myself 
by  thinking  or  dreaming  of  some  long  past 

event  that  seemed  gone  forever.     Sometimes 

291 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

the  delirium  of  fever,  a  familiar  perfume,  the 
peculiar  lucidity  that  comes  to  the  drowning, 
a  return  to  the  scenes  of  childhood,  over- 
whelms the  soul  with  a  flood  of  memories  of 
events  that  seemed  to  have  disappeared  for- 
ever. In  old  age  we  observe  that  marvelous 
brightening  of  the  old  images  of  childhood. 
SomewThere  in  the  soul  these  memories  have 
lain  in  the  dark  for  many,  many  years,  but 
when  they  emerge  into  the  light  of  conscious- 
ness we  see  that  they  have  preserved  all  their 
original  delicacy  and  freshness.  From  my 
own  experience,  I  am  persuaded  that  no  im- 
portant spiritual  event  perishes,  in  this  life  at 
least.  It  remains  either  as  a  definite  memory, 
or  in  the  change  it  has  effected  in  my  whole 
character  and  nature.  But  granting  that  the 
faculty  of  memory  is  very  different  in  different 
persons,  and  that  with  our  other  faculties  it 
shares  the  infirmities  of  old  age,  it  does  not 
follow  that  God's  memory  is  equally  defective, 

or  that  His  thoughts  are  obliterated  and  run 

292 


THE    SOUL   AND    DEATH 

together.  If,  as  I  am  compelled  to  believe, 
my  little  soul  is  the  product  of  His  all-com- 
prehending Soul,  if  I  am  related  to  God 
spiritually,  i.e.,  somewhat  as  my  thoughts  are 
related  to  my  mind,  I  find  in  that  belief  the 
consolation  of  absolute  security  both  for  the 
present  and  the  future.  Therefore  I  do  not 
fear  that  at  death  I  shall  be  absorbed  into  God 
as  bubbles  are  absorbed  into  a  dark  heaving 
sea.  I  believe  that  I  shall  live  in  Him,  in 
peace  and  harmony  with  His  will,  I  trust,  and 
with  those  good  souls  that  are  in  accordance 
with  the  will  of  God.  In  my  place  I  have  no 
fear  that  God  will  forget  me. 

Again,  we  know  what  becomes  of  the  body 
after  death.  It  is  subjected  to  a  long  process 
of  slow  decay  in  the  course  of  which  not  one 
of  its  particles  is  lost,  not  one  of  its  causes 
fails  to  produce  an  effect.  The  long  process 
of  evolution  has  become  a  process  of  dissolu- 
tion. That  is  all.  Death,  however,  is  not  a 

slow  process  of  decay.    It  is  an  instantaneous 

293 


THE   LIVING   WORD 

fact,  the  sudden  sharp  termination  of  a  pre- 
vious condition.  Death  builds  no  bridges,  it 
spins  no  threads  from  the  departing  soul  to 
other  spiritual  beings.  It  is  the  sudden,  sharp 
disruption  of  the  old  life.  The  soul  which  was 
here  a  moment  ago  has  departed  with  all  its 
treasures  leaving  no  trace  behind.  But  unless 
the  soul  lives  on  in  its  own  sphere,  and  con- 
tinues to  produce  effects  after  its  kind,  then 
here  alone  in  the  world,  the  law  of  cause  and 
effect  would  seem  to  be  broken.  In  this  re- 
spect as  in  so  many  others,  the  true  counter- 
part to  death  is  birth,  which  is  also  a  sudden 
termination  of  a  former  life,  and  entrance  into 
a  new  sphere  of  existence.  Does  not  every 
human  soul  enter  this  world  of  ours  as  a  new 
creation,  utterly  inexplicable  to  us  ?  Is  it  not 
a  new  beginning  bearing  in  some  sense  doubt- 
less the  imprint  of  earlier  spirits,  and  yet  not 
composed  of  their  substance  ?  Every  new 
soul  is  a  new  miracle.  In  time,  it  is  true,  the 

old  spirit  world  will  take  possession  of  this  new 

294 


THE    SOUL   AND    DEATH 

creation.  And  yet  the  old  spirits  are  not  the 
material  out  of  which  the  new  spirit  is  made. 
The  souls  of  a  father  and  mother,  passive  and 
unconscious  instruments  in  a  higher  hand, 
are  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  creation  of 
the  new  soul.  Yet  they  lose  nothing  in  com- 
municating life  to  their  child.  Their  light  is 
not  dimmed  as  the  new  light  grows  in  strength. 
The  parent's  soul  is  not  related  to  the  soul  of 
the  child  as  cause  is  related  to  effect,  but  souls 
are  related  to  each  other  very  much  as  thoughts 
are  related,  —  one  leads  forth  another. 

The  child  comes  into  the  world  as  thought 
comes  into  our  minds,  through  the  organs 
of  sense.  Its  spiritualization  like  the  spirit- 
ualization  of  our  sensations  is  yet  to  follow. 

Let  me  try  to  make  this  more  real  by  another 
example,  by  an  experiment.  Go  out  into  the 
world  of  Nature  and  open  your  eyes.  Sud- 
denly a  new  image  is  presented  to  your  soul, 
an  image  that  can  be  accounted  for  by  nothing 

that    you    have    formerly    seen    and    known, 

295 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

in  short  an  image  that  enters  your  mind  as  a 
new-born  child  enters  this  world,  different 
from  all  spirits  that  have  existed  before  it, 
yet  closely  united  to  all  that  have  gone  before, 
an  image  that  may  become  much,  that  may 
live  long  and  work  many  a  change  in  your  soul. 
For  the  creation  of  that  image,  all  the  forces 
of  your  being  were  necessary,  all  the  energies 
of  your  body,  your  nervous  system,  the  wonder- 
ful mechanism  of  your  eye,  above  all  your 
conscious  intelligent  mind.  So  for  the  creation 
of  that  new  soul,  of  that  new  life,  all  the  forces 
of  earth  were  necessary.  A  still  more  marvel- 
ous mechanism  must  be  called  into  action, 
and  above  all  material  energies  which  of  them- 
selves could  never  produce  a  spiritual  being, 
the  Spirit  of  God  is  necessary  in  whose  mind 
the  new  soul  arises  and  in  whose  spiritual 
nature  the  new  soul  is  made,  just  as  the  new 
image  exists  in  your  mind  and  nowhere  else. 
So  the  image  is  formed.  Now,  close  your 

eyes.    Instantly  the  image  pales.    The  warm, 

296 


THE    SOUL    AND    DEATH 

bright,  sensible  picture  altogether  disappears. 
It  does  not  pass  over  into  another  picture. 
The  materials  out  of  which  it  was  made  run 
together  again  in  your  body.  Who  can  find 
those  elements  again  ?  Who  can  put  them 
together  again  in  that  marvelous  combination 
that  once  represented  to  you  the  glory  of  the 
earth,  and  sky,  and  sea,  or  your  dead  child's 
face,  though  he  search  your  body  through  with 
a  microscope?  Never,  never;  they  are  gone. 
So  is  your  death,  sudden,  abrupt,  a  severance 
as  sharp  as  the  closing  of  an  eye.  The  night 
of  death  draws  its  sable  pall  not  merely  over 
your  eyes,  but  over  all  your  senses,  and  those 
senses  are  extinguished  forever.  Together 
with  your  limbs,  your  organs,  the  whole  marvel- 
ous mechanism  of  your  body,  they  run  together 
and  you  cannot  find  them  again.  Just  as  the 
image  in  your  eye  wras  dissolved  in  your  body 
that  created  it,  so  at  death  your  body  is  dis- 
solved in  the  great  body  of  earth  out  of  which 

it  issued. 

297 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

But  is  that  all  ?  When  I  close  my  eye  and 
extinguish  the  sensual  picture,  is  that  the  end 
of  all  which  I  have  seen  ?  Not  so.  Instead 
of  the  transient  momentary  image  a  memory 
has  arisen  in  my  soul  that  will  endure  accord- 
ing to  its  importance  as  long  as  I  endure. 
Behind  the  fleeting  representation  of  the  senses 
there  arises  the  higher,  freer  spiritual  reality. 
The  image  of  the  glorious  scene  once  painted 
on  my  retina  has  vanished  and  it  may  never 
be  painted  there  again,  but  in  a  higher  form 
associated  with  noble  feeling  the  vision  is 
still  in  my  soul  and  I  can  recall  it  wrhen  I  will. 
The  face  of  my  lost  child  I  can  never  again 
behold  with  these  eyes,  but  that  gracious  image 
still  dwells  in  my  heart,  still  smiles  on  me,  is 
nearer  to  me  than  of  old.  The  memory  may 
seem  to  you  pale  and  cold  in  comparison  with 
the  rich  warm  picture  of  the  senses.  But  that 
is  because  you  are  at  present  dazzled  by  this 
material  show,  just  as  a  single  electric  light 
can  blot  out  the  whole  heaven  of  stars.  But 


THE    SOUL   AND    DEATH 

at  all  events,  the  soul's  treasures  are  real.  They 
alone  endure. 

When  then  our  eye  closes  in  death  and  all  our 
physical  sense  impressions  are  blotted  out  at 
once,  we  may  well  believe  that  a  world  of 
memory  awakes  in  us  to  take  its  place,  a  world 
that  will  be  to  us  then  the  only  real  world. 
Whatever  may  be  the  surprises  of  the  future, 
whatever  further  development  we  are  capable 
of,  and  I  believe  it  to  be  enormous,  we  shall 
carry  into  that  world  a  spiritual  body,  a  body 
that  represents  us  perfectly,  a  body  that  con- 
sists of  all  we  have  been,  done,  and  suffered, 
a  body  of  memories. 

That  is  the  great  business  of  our  lives,  the 
transformation  of  a  fleeting  animal  life  into 
an  abiding  spiritual  character.  All  our  lives 
we  are  engaged  in  this  task,  the  task  of  con- 
verting the  fleeting  unrealities  of  this  natural 
world,  which  run  like  quicksilver  through 
our  fingers,  into  spiritual  realities,  or,  to  state 

it  in  terms  of  psychology,  to  transform  mere 

299 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

sensations  into  permanent  memories.  In  this 
task  the  whole  soul  is  engaged.  God  has  pro- 
vided us  with  marvelous  senses,  the  eye,  the 
ear,  etc.,  constructed  with  reference  to  the 
world  in  which  we  live.  In  this  respect  we  are 
even  less  richly  endowed  than  many  animals. 
Our  true  dowry  consists,  not  in  our  senses, 
but  in  the  use  we  are  able  to  make  of  these 
sensations  for  our  spiritual  life.  Our  eyes 
and  ears  are  like  golden  buckets  by  which 
we  are  enabled  to  draw  up  water  of  life  from 
the  deep  well  of  life.  They  are  treasure  boxes 
God  placed  in  our  hands  when  He  sent  us 
into  this  marvelous  world  that  we  might  not 
return  to  Him  empty  handed.  When  you 
have  gathered  enough  for  Him,  God  calls  you 
home.  But  first  He  places  a  cover  upon  your 
golden  bucket.  He  closes  and  seals  fast  the 
treasure  chest,  that  not  a  drop  of  the  water 
of  life  may  be  spilled,  that  not  one  of  your 
treasures  may  be  taken  from  you.  During  the 

long  day,  the  laborers  were  scattered  far  and 

300 


THE    SOUL   AND    DEATH 

wide  over  the  great  vineyard ;  at  evening  they 
return  together  to  the  one  Father's  house. 
How  gracious  is  our  Lord!  What  we  have 
gathered  for  Him,  He  returns  to  us  with  His 
blessing.  Then  take  heed  what  you  carry 
home,  for  you  are  carrying  it  home  for  your- 
self. 

For  the  soul  to  estimate  or  use  its  inner 
wealth,  it  is  necessary  to  close  the  outer  door 
of  sense,  and  the  more  firmly  I  close  the  doors 
of  the  outer  world,  the  brighter  all  becomes 
within,  the  more  capable  I  become  of  putting 
forth  the  whole  strength  of  the  soul.  Then 
memory  awakens  and  reveals  to  me  a  thousand 
forgotten  pictures.  Death,  however,  only 
closes  the  doors  of  sense  a  little  tighter,  closes 
them  so  fast  that  they  never  reopen.  Then  a 
new  sun  rises  within  us.  Then  for  the  first 
time  the  light  of  the  soul,  the  light  of  memory, 
the  light  of  conscience,  dawns  on  us  in  all  its 
splendor. 

This  massive,  palpable  house  of  flesh  must 
301 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

indeed  crumble  into  nothingness.  You  will 
no  longer  go  wearily  and  painfully  on  heavy 
feet.  You  will  no  longer  bow  your  shoulders 
to  heavy  burdens.  Your  body  will  no  longer 
give  you  pain.  You  will  experience  no  more 
fatigue,  weakness,  and  the  desire  to  die.  You 
will  not  be  separated  by  death  or  distance 
from  those  you  love.  Instead  of  walking  on 
heavy  feet  of  flesh,  you  will  be  borne  by  the 
light  wings  of  the  spirit.  Instead  of  separa- 
tion from  those  you  love  by  distance  or  by 
the  impenetrable  veil  of  the  flesh,  we  shall 
look  into  each  other's  hearts,  we  shall  read 
each  other's  thoughts,  and  though  we  seem  to 
lose  something,  do  we  not  gain  far  more  ? 

So  think  of  death  as  an  exaltation  to  a  higher 
sphere.  So  think  of  that  change  as  a  trans- 
formation into  a  lighter,  purer,  freer,  more 
energetic  life  in  which  the  whole  house  of  your 
soul  will  be  open  to  the  light  and  you  will  be 
born  into  a  new  life  that  you  may  continue 

the   work  you  have   begun   here,   and   labor 

302 


THE   SOUL   AND    DEATH 

with  greater  strength,  with  greater  freedom, 
with  a  clearer,  brighter  conscience  in  the  great 
house  of  your  Lord  on  high. 

Many  indeed  believe  or  profess  to  believe 
in  another  life.  But  that  we  shall  find  ourselves 
there  where  we  lost  ourselves  here,  that  we 
shall  carry  into  the  new  life  our  old  memories, 
and  that  those  memories  wrill  constitute  our 
spiritual  capital,  and  form  our  spiritual  body, 
they  will  not  believe.  Man,  they  say,  must  be- 
come a  new  creature.  He  will  find  himself 
a  new  being  on  entering  the  new  life.  They 
rob  this  life  of  its  greatest  moral  thought, 
namely,  that  everything  we  do  has  an  eternal 
significance,  that  we  are  making  for  ourselves 
a  garment  we  must  wear  forever.  Instead  of 
understanding  that  by  death  alone  man  fully 
discovers  himself,  fully  comes  to  himself  and 
finds  himself,  they  imagine  that  by  death  man 
forever  loses  himself,  escapes  the  consequences 
of  life  and  becomes  a  new  being.  It  is  on  this 

account  the  thought  of  immortality  has  so  little 

303 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

power  over  men.  Instead  of  seeing  in  the 
breath  that  rises  out  of  the  water,  and  into 
which  the  whole  water  is  transformed,  a 
picture  of  our  risen  life,  it  seems  to  them  to 
disappear  totally  together  with  the  water, 
and  the  cloud  that  floats  in  the  blue  vault  of 
heaven  seems  to  them  a  new  creation  in  a  new- 
world.  In  reality  it  is  only  the  old  water  under 
a  new  form  of  existence.  Not  one  drop  has 
perished,  not  one  cause  has  failed  to  produce 
its  effect.  So  will  it  be  in  our  new  life. 

It  is  this  that  makes  the  thought  of  death 
always  serious.  St.  Paul  truly  said,  "The  sting 
of  death  is  sin,"  and  Shakespeare  repels  the 
temptation  to  suicide  with  the  reflection,  "But 
in  that  sleep  of  death,  what  dreams  may 
come!"  But  what  if  death  is  not  a  sleep, 
but  the  great  awakening  of  the  soul  that  has 
slept  and  dreamt  so  long?  We  know  how 
it  is  when  we  shut  the  world  from  us,  and  go 
to  our  beds  at  night.  Every  one  of  us,  I  have 

no   doubt,    has    at   times    been    scourged    by 

304 


THE    SOUL   AND    DEATH 

memories.  The  unworthy  deed,  the  evil 
thought,  the  unkind  word,  the  thing  done  that 
ought  not  to  have  been  done,  and  the  thing 
undone  that  ought  to  have  been  done,  appear 
to  us  then  in  different  forms  and  speak  to  us 
with  different  voices  than  in  the  hours  of  our 
gay  distraction,  when  we  can  with  ease  forget 
ourselves.  No  man  burdened  with  guilty 
memories  desires  to  be  alone.  So  death  will 
isolate  us  more  profoundly.  Death,  which 
closes  the  door  forever  on  this  world  of  sensual 
delights,  passions,  colors,  sounds,  and  perfumes 
in  which  we  have  lived,  will  give  us  our  first 
perfect  revelation  of  ourselves.  Having  noth- 
ing to  distract  us,  we  shall  be  forced  to  take 
account  of  the  spiritual  treasures  we  have 
gathered  here,  and  the  uses  we  have  made  of 
those  treasures.  Hence  Jesus  depicts  the 
extreme  surprise  of  both  the  saved  and  the  lost 
when  they  shall  see  themselves  as  they  are. 
Even  now  we  are  warned  by  countless  intima- 
tions of  our  relation  to  God,  whether  we  are 

305 


THE    LIVING   WORD 

working  for  God  or  against  God,  whether 
God's  will  is  with  us  or  against  us.  So  already 
many  a  first  becomes  last  and  last  first.  Woe 
then  to  him  who  carries  into  that  eternal  world 
only  the  recollection  of  an  altogether  wasted 
and  corrupted  life!  Woe  to  him,  as  Jesus  said, 
who  presents  himself  at  the  marriage  feast  of 
the  Lamb  without  a  \vedding  garment,  and 
who  must  feel  and  see  how  unprepared  he  is 
for  that  holy  company!  Woe  to  that  man  to 
whom  innocence  awrakens  only  evil  desires, 
and  woe  to  him  who  brings  home  at  last  to 
God  only  that  which  God  must  destroy  before 
Heaven  can  be  Heaven!  Well  for  him  who 
has  led  his  life  here  in  accordance  with  the 
mind  of  God.  Happy  is  he  whose  evil  deeds 
are  covered  up  by  good  deeds.  Blessed  is  he 
whose  good  deeds  enrich  Heaven  as  his  good 
memories  enrich  his  own  soul.  Most  blessed 
he  who  shall  find  children  in  the  Kingdom 
of  God  to  rise  up  and  hail  him  as  their  father, 

and  to  tell  him  that  but  for  him  they  would 

306 


THE   SOUL    AND    DEATH 

not  be  there.  As  the  memory  of  trials  and 
sorrows  courageously  endured  gives  us  here 
great  satisfaction,  and  as  the  cessation  of  pain 
is  to  us  a  sweet  pleasure,  so  in  a  much  higher 
sense  shall  we  rejoice  in  the  burdens  we  have 
borne,  the  sorrow  we  have  patiently  endured, 
in  that  day  when  God  wipes  away  tears  from 
off  all  faces. 

Let  me  add  one  word  on  the  attempt  to 
communicate  with  those  who  have  gone  before 
us.  To  many  persons  the  possibility  of  holding 
intercourse  with  the  dead  is  a  thought  full  of 
sweetness.  If  they  could  assure  themselves 
by  empirical  proofs  of  the  reality  of  that  spirit 
world,  they  think  it  would  be  so  much  easier 
to  believe  in  it.  If  they  could  occasionally 
communicate  with  their  departed  friends,  it 
would  lighten  the  intolerable  pain  and  tedium 
of  the  separation.  I  suppose  there  are  few 
mourners  who  have  not  sometimes  been 
tempted  to  cry, 


307 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

Come  down  for  a  moment!   oh,  come!    Come  serious  and 

mild 

And  pale,  as  thou  wert  on  this  earth,  thou  adorable  child! 
One  tender  and  pitying  look  of  thy  tenderest  eyes, 
One  word  of  solemn  assurance  and  truth  that  the  soul  with 

its  love  never  dies! 

If  our  departed  friends  could  reappear  to 
us  in  the  form  and  manner  in  which  we  desire 
to  see  them,  if  they  could  come  to  us  alone  in 
stillness  and  sanctity  and  whisper  into  our  ear 
the  message  of  hope  we  desire  so  earnestly 
to  hear,  we  might  be  justified  in  our  wish. 
But  how  any  pure  and  loving  heart  can  endure 
to  seek  the  gratification  of  its  desire  in  the  vulgar 
atmosphere  of  a  spiritualistic  meeting,  or 
through  such  mediums,  with  their  claptrap, 
their  cabinets,  and  other  paraphernalia  to 
deceive,  or  how  any  sane  mind  can  derive 
satisfaction  from  the  gross  messages  they 
ascribe  to  the  wise  dead,  is  what  I  have  never 
been  able  to  understand.  Without  discussing 
or  denying  the  reality  of  some  spiritualistic 

manifestations,  the  truth  seems  to  be  this,  - 

308 


THE   SOUL   AND    DEATH 

the  dead  have  laid  aside  their  material  bodies ; 
they  have  entered  a  new  life;  henceforth  our 
relations  with  them  are  spiritual  relations, 
and  if  we  try  to  make  our  relations  carnal  and 
material,  supposing  we  succeed  at  all,  such  a 
relation  must  of  necessity  be  morbid,  abnormal, 
and  injurious.  Can  the  mother  communicate 
with  the  soul  of  her  unborn  child  ?  Can  she 
call  it  by  name,  and  will  the  child  hear  and 
say,  "Here  am  I"?  The  mother  does  indeed 
communicate  with  the  soul  of  the  unborn  child, 
yes,  mysteriously  in  God's  hand  she  communi- 
cates a  soul  to  her  unborn  child,  and  so  the 
dead  communicate  with  us  and  communicate 
to  us.  So  they  surround  us  and  teach  us,  give 
us  spiritual  life  and  consolation;  so  by  their 
wisdom  we  know  what  we  should  not  know 
of  ourselves ;  so  by  their  virtue  we  lead  a  life 
we  could  not  lead  by  ourselves.  When  we 
think  of  them  they  are  near  us.  They  surround 
us  like  a  cohort  of  angels.  But  they  come  to  us 

invisibly,   they   speak   to   us   inaudibly,   they 

309 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

enter  us  mysteriously,  as  the  soul  of  the  mother 
enters  the  child  she  bears.  With  that  we 
must  be  satisfied  until  death  breaks  the  shell 
of  our  old  life  and  our  spiritual  eyes  are  opened 
and  our  spiritual  ears  are  unstopped. 


310 


Yea,  and  we  are  found  false  witnesses  of  God;  because 
we  have  testified  of  God  that  He  raised  up  Christ:  whom 
He  raised  not  up,  if  so  be  that  the  dead  rise  not. 

I  CORINTHIANS,  xv.  15 


311 


CHAPTER  XV 

ETERNAL   LIFE 

SAINT  PAUL  in  this  superb  chapter  of 
Corinthians  is  describing  God's  ordering  of 
the  life  of  man  in  this  world  and  the  world 
to  come.  The  manner  in  which  he  approaches 
this  subject,  the  most  important  with  which 
the  mind  of  man  can  deal,  is  very  interesting. 
He  quotes  no  authorities,  he  falls  back  on  no 
traditions.  He  does  not  urge  the  sorrow  and 
incompleteness  of  human  life  as  a  reason  for 
continuance  of  life  beyond  the  grave.  On 
the  contrary,  Paul  lets  his  eye  range  over  the 
creation  of  God,  and  he  finds  it  all  so  good, 
so  wise,  that  he  believes  the  beneficent  Author 
of  our  Being  will  not  withhold  from  man  what 
man  desires  most  of  all.  Beginning  with  the 

death  and  the  resurrection  of  Jesus,  he  surveys 

313 


THE   LIVING   WORD 

the  great  processes  of  death  and  renewal  in 
Nature.  He  passes  in  review  vegetable  life, 
animal  life,  man's  life  and  the  stars,  and 
strengthened  by  those  processes  and  under 
those  purely  natural  images,  he  sets  forth  the 
mystery  of  man's  death  and  resurrection  as  part 
of  God's  universal  plan.  This  is  not  exactly 
logic.  It  is  what  we  call  to-day  the  inductive 
method,  by  means  of  which  we  pass  through 
known  facts  to  their  causes  and  meaning.  If 
theology  would  ever  re-establish  itself  as  a 
science,  it  must  return  to  this  method  and  begin 
again  to  look  the  universe  in  the  face.  At 
present  it  is  an  affair  of  words,  "full  of  sound 
and  fury,  signifying  nothing."  That  is  why 
men  will  have  nothing  to  do  with  it.  But  let 
theology  begin  again  to  tell  the  world  the  mind 
of  God,  and  it  will  easily  re-establish  itself 
queen  of  the  sciences.  For  there  is  nothing 
the  world  craves  so  much  to-day  as  a  religious 
interpretation  of  the  facts  of  the  universe. 

Paul  bases  his  great  induction  on  the  ground 
314 


ETERNAL   LIFE 

of  observed  fact;  first  the  fact  of  Christ's 
resurrection,  and  secondly  the  analogy  of  death 
and  resurrection  in  the  great  processes  of 
Nature.  Let  us  also  approach  the  subject 
from  the  same  side,  remembering  this,  - 
that  the  further  we  can  follow  man's  life  in  this 
world  backward  and  forward,  the  broader  the 
foundation  we  shall  gain  for  the  tower  that  is 
to  pierce  the  stars.  At  best,  life  is  all  too  short 
for  such  an  induction,  but  it  is  longer  than  most 
writers  on  immortality  imagine.  They  assume 
that  man  lives  only  twice,  once  in  this  world, 
once  in  the  world  to  come ;  whereas  man  really 
lives  three  times,  twice  in  this  world  and  once 
in  the  world  to  come.  They  forget  that  we 
have  already  passed  through  one  death  and 
resurrection.  But  in  such  a  barren  field  as 
this,  it  does  not  do  to  forget  anything. 

We  look  at  human  life  in  the  hope  of  finding 
something  permanent  in  soul  and  body  on 
which  to  build ;  but  it  all  seems  flux  and  change. 

The   whole   man  changes  from  day  to  day. 

315 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

In  the  course  of  years,  every  particle  of  his 
body  passes  from  him  and  is  scattered  to  the 
four  winds  of  heaven,  and  a  new  body  is 
drawn  together,  fragment  by  fragment,  from 
the  outer  world.  How  astonished  we  should 
be  could  we  see  where  the  body  we  possessed 
twenty-five  years  ago  is  to-day,  and  how  many 
transformations  its  particles  have  undergone 
since  they  left  us.  The  soul  also  changes,  and 
the  more  closely  we  study  the  life  of  the  soul 
and  the  life  of  the  body,  the  more  intimate 
we  find  the  relationship  to  be.  That  is  one  of 
the  chief  errors  of  Christian  Science.  By 
denying  the  reality  of  the  body  and  its  relation 
to  the  soul,  they  do  not  cause  those  relations  to 
disappear;  they  only  commit  themselves  to  a 
falsehood,  and  render  themselves  incapable 
of  understanding  either  soul  or  body  correctly. 
The  relations,  I  repeat,  are  very  intimate. 
When  the  body  changes  most  rapidly,  the  soul 
also  changes  most  rapidly.  At  last  we  come 

to  this  strange  fact:  The  soul  is  tied   to  the 

316 


ETERNAL    LIFE 

body  in  this  life,  but  it  is  tied  by  a  very  long 
cord,  and  by  a  cord  that  is  constantly  lengthen- 
ing. All  our  knowledge,  to  begin  with,  comes 
to  us  through  our  physical  senses,  and  the 
more  the  eye  has  seen  and  the  ear  has  heard, 
and  the  further  the  body  has  traveled,  the 
richer  the  store  of  our  knowledge.  The  child 
and  the  savage  remain  chained  for  the  most 
part  to  their  physical  sensations;  but  as  life 
becomes  more  spiritual,  our  environment  be- 
comes greater,  the  soul  freer.  The  soul  of 
the  astronomer  wanders  out  into  the  infinite, 
and  dwells  among  the  stars,  from  which  it  is 
recalled  by  hunger  and  fatigue.  The  historian 
lives  in  the  past.  Though  his  body  lives  let 
us  say,  in  Cambridge  at  the  beginning  of  the 
twentieth  century,  his  soul  lives  for  the  most 
part  away  in  Greece  or  Judea,  in  a  vanished 
world.  The  absent  lover  lives  with  his  be- 
loved. Now  our  senses  no  longer  direct  our 
thoughts,  the  eye  no  longer  sees,  the  ear  no 

longer  hears;  we  have  plunged  into  ourselves, 

317 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

we  are  reenacting  with  the  dead  scenes  on 
which  our  mortal  eye  shall  never  rest  again. 
At  certain  times  and  under  certain  circum- 
stances the  detachment  becomes  so  complete 
that  we  clearly  perceive  distant  occurrences, 
a  faculty  at  present  granted  to  but  few,  but 
which  may  yet  become  the  possession  of  all. 
If  we  compare  our  condition  in  this  life  with 
our  condition  before  birth,  when  our  whole 
soul's  life  consisted  in  the  perception  of  a  few 
organic  sensations,  we  shall  see  that  the  soul, 
though  still  tied  to  the  body,  is  wonderfully 
free.  Its  environment  is  vastly  larger;  it  is 
enriched  not  only  by  its  own  experiences,  but 
by  the  experiences  of  ten  thousand  other 
spirits  who  have  surveyed  the  world  before  us 
and  bequeathed  to  us  the  fruit  of  their  lives. 
Carry  this  thought  a  little  further.  Realize 
that  death  is  but  a  second  birth,  exactly  like 
our  first,  which  also  was  death  to  our  first 
life,  and  we  shall  see  that  death  opens  to  us 

the  door  of  a  third  and  vaster  life,  in  which 

318 


ETERNAL    LIFE 

the  soul  is  altogether  free  and  our  relations 
with  other  spirits  will  be  more  intimate  and 
delightful,  because  we  shall  all  be  contem- 
poraries, and  no  longer  separated  by  the 
barrier  of  the  flesh.  The  change  must  be 
at  least  as  great  as  the  change  wrought  by 
our  first  birth,  and  that  is  enough  to  satisfy 
us;  although  of  course  the  change  will  not 
come  all  at  once  there  any  more  than  it 
came  all  at  once  here. 

Again,  we  look  for  something  permanent 
in  our  present  life,  and  we  are  disconcerted. 
All  seems  to  perish  so  quickly.  The  images 
presented  to  our  senses  so  soon  disappear.  We 
survey  an  object  with  our  eyes.  The  body 
furnishes  the  materials,  the  fluids  and  the 
energy  by  which  that  picture  is  taken,  and 
the  soul  sees  the  picture.  That  is  another 
blunder  of  Christian  Scientists.  It  is  the 
soul,  of  course,  which  sees;  we  do  not  need 
them  to  tell  us  that;  but  without  the  mechan- 
ical apparatus,  without  the  materials,  fluids, 

319 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

and  energy  furnished  by  the  body,  the  soul 
sees  nothing.  The  picture  on  the  retina  van- 
ishes, the  materials  out  of  which  it  was  made 
run  together  again  in  the  body;  and  yet  the 
picture  is  not  lost.  It  reappears  in  a  higher 
form  of  thought;  it  takes  a  permanent  place, 
according  to  its  importance,  among  our  mem- 
ories. The  materials  of  our  bodies  at  the  time 
that  picture  was  taken  may  disappear;  the 
whole  brain  may  be  dissolved  and  made  over 
again  a  dozen  times;  and  yet  that  memory 
remains.  The  perception  of  a  truth  which 
dawned  on  us  on  a  certain  day  is  never  lost. 
Other  experiences  enrich  and  illustrate  it,  but 
they  do  not  obliterate  it.  So  our  fleeting  rela- 
tions with  the  universe,  as  far  as  they  enter 
our  spiritual  life,  become  fixed  and  perma- 
nent. Extend  this  thought  as  we  extended  it 
before,  and  wre  have  reason  to  believe  that 
when  life's  picture  vanishes,  when  all  our 
body's  materials,  fluids,  and  energies  are 

dissolved  and  reabsorbed  in  the  great  body 

320 


ETERNAL    LIFE 

of  earth  from  which  they  came,  the  soul  re- 
mains with  all  its  treasures,  and  we  carry  out 
of  this  world  all  that  ever  belonged  to  us. 

So  if  we  approach  our  eternal  life  as  Saint 
Paul  approached  it,  on  its  natural  side,  we 
see  that  that  eternal  life,  infinitely  as  it  tran- 
scends this  life,  is  but  the  continuation  of  the 
life  that  now  is.  The  foundation  of  the  tower 
which  pierces  the  sky  rests  firmly  on  the  earth ; 
and  the  higher  the  tower,  the  stronger  and 
deeper  the  foundation.  Our  wonderful  life, 
which  has  a  beginning  but  no  end,  is  broken 
by  two  grand  events,1  each  of  which  lifts  us 
to  a  new  world.  One  of  these  events  we  now 
call  birth,  and  the  other  we  call  death;  but 
we  shall  soon  see  that  they  are  both  the  same, 

1  An  old  and  famous  objection  to  immortality  is  that  that  which 
has  a  beginning  must  also  have  an  end.  If  we  try  to  prove  this 
by  the  analogy  of  material  objects,  or  even  of  geometrical  lines  and 
spaces,  the  argument  holds;  but  of  spiritual  things  it  does  not 
hold.  All  the  laws  of  mathematics  were  discovered  at  certain 
definite  times.  This  circumstance,  however,  imposes  no  necessary 
limitation  on  their  future  endurance  and  validity.  A  thought 
rises  in  our  minds  as  something  absolutely  new,  yet  it  may  endure 
as  long  as  we  endure.  A  new  spirit  arises  in  the  mind  of  God  as 
one  of  His  thoughts,  and  it  may  live  there  as  long  as  God  lives. 

321    . 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

-death  to  the  old  world,  birth  to  the  new. 
There  is  therefore  no  reason  why  we  should 
fear  death  any  more  than  a  child  need  fear 
birth.  Death  in  reality  is  an  old  acquaintance, 
who  returns  not  to  destroy  the  beautiful  life 
into  which  he  once  led  us,  but  to  stretch  us  a 
helping  hand  into  the  eternal  life.  The  old 
ship,  our  old  body,  has  now  completed  its 
voyage;  it  has  landed  us  safe  on  that  happy 
shore  of  painless,  well-nigh  perfect  peace, 
from  which  we  shall  never  wish  to  return. 
What  matter  if  the  old  ship  now  fall  to  pieces, 
so  that  we  cannot  return  ?  That  only  means 
that  our  voyage  has  ended;  we  shall  toil  no 
more,  we  shall  suffer  no  more,  we  shall  be 
parted  no  more  on  the  stormy  seas  of  time. 
Out  of  that  ship  we  do  not  go  poor  and  naked, 
but  enriched  with  all  we  ever  truly  possessed. 
Even  the  little  joys  and  the  freshness  and  inno- 
cence of  our  childhood  we  thought  we  had  lost 
forever  begin  to  return  in  old  age,  —  a  sure 

sign  that  we  shall  lose  nothing. 

322    ' 


ETERNAL    LIFE 

On  to  that  shore  we  do  not  come  as  strangers, 
any  more  than  the  child  comes  into  this  world 
a  stranger  or  unexpected.  No  ship  draws 
near  for  which  someone  is  not  eagerly  waiting ; 
and  at  this  moment  perhaps  there  are  eager 
eyes  watching  for  some  sign  of  our  approaching 
sails,  and  loving  hearts  praying  that  we  may 
soon  come  to  them  safely  and  happily. 

To  this  general  view,  two  objections  may 
well  be  made.  First  —  the  child  brings  no 
knowledge  of  its  former  life  into  this  world 
with  it.  How  then  can  we  hope  to  carry  out 
of  this  world  the  memories  of  our  old  life  ? 
How  shall  we  know  and  love  one  another? 
The  answer  is  this:  The  child  brought  no 
knowledge  of  its  former  life  into  this  world 
because  it  possessed  no  knowledge;  it  had  no 
memories;  how  then  could  its  memories  be 
preserved  ?  The  child's  whole  forces  in  its 
first  life  were  devoted  to  fashioning  a  body  for 
its  second  life,  and  it  did  bring  that  body  into 

the  world  with  it.    So  our  forces  in  this  life  are 

323    ' 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

spent  in  fashioning  a  body  for  this  world  and 
the  world  to  come,  —  a  spiritual  body,  —  and 
shall  we  not  take  that  spiritual  body  into  the 
new  life  with  us  ?  But  of  what  does  a  spiritual 
body  consist  but  of  spiritual  elements;  that 
is  to  say,  of  love,  hope,  thought,  and  memory  ? 
Therefore,  why  should  we  not  know  and  love 
there  those  we  have  known  and  loved  here  ? 

Secondly  —  it  may  be  asked,  if  the  organs 
of  the  spiritual  body  are  developed  in  this  life, 
why  is  death  necessary  ?  To  this  I  may  reply 
-  why  was  birth  necessary,  since  before  it  all 
the  child's  organs  were  perfectly  formed  ? 
The  answer  in  both  cases  is  very  evident. 
Death  or  birth,  as  we  may  choose  to  call  it, 
is  necessary  partly  to  end  the  old  life  by  the 
destruction  of  organs  which  are  no  longer 
needed,  partly  to  provide  a  sphere,  a  new 
environment  for  an  organism  already  in  exist- 
ence and  ready  to  enter  it.  As  the  child  could 
never  attain  to  perfect  manhood  or  woman- 
hood imprisoned  in  the  womb,  so  we  attain 

324 


ETERNAL   LIFE 

our  eternal  life  only  by  the  shattering  of  this 
temporal  organism  at  the  touch  of  death. 

There  is  one  great  and  dreadful  fact  remain- 
ing, a  fact  which  gives  death  its  bitterest  sting, 
and  unbelief  its  most  deadly  weapon.  While 
we  are  living  in  this  world  we  cannot  com- 
municate with  those  who  have  gone  before. 
I  do  not  mean  that  absolutely.  We  can  indeed 
hold  blessed  communion  with  the  departed. 
We  can  walk  in  their  footsteps,  we  can  think 
their  thoughts;  wre  are  all  more  influenced  by 
the  dead  than  by  the  living.  But  all  our  com- 
munion is  either  in  memory  or  anticipation, 
or  by  the  undying  power  of  spiritual  truth. 
We  could  do  all  that  if  our  friends  were  parted 
by  distance,  not  by  death.  But  we  cannot  see 
them,  we  cannot  question  them,  nor  assure 
ourselves  by  question  and  answer  of  the  cer- 
tainty of  their  continued  existence  and  their 
continued  love  for  us.  That  is  absolutely 
true,  and  it  will  probably  be  forever  true; 

and  it  is  precisely  because  it  is  true  that  the 

325  , 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

whole  subject  of  another  life  is  a  matter  of 
faith,  not  knowledge,  and  that  even  such 
humble  attempts  as  this  to  make  that  life  more 
real  have  their  value,  not  because  they  are 
convincing  in  themselves,  but  because  they 
are  the  best  we  can  do.  For  no  human  in- 
genuity can  draw  that  veil  aside,  no  human 
genius  in  this  world  will  ever  bridge  that  gulf. 
Death  is  to  this  extent  a  real  thing ;  it  sets  an 
absolute  barrier  between  those  who  have 
passed  and  those  who  have  not  passed  it. 
Again,  exactly  like  birth.  Our  dull  eyes, 
capable  only  of  seeing  light  reflected  from  the 
surfaces  of  material  bodies,  could  not  dis- 
tinguish those  angel  faces,  no  longer  clothed 
in  flesh,  even  were  they  very  near  us.  Our 
gross  ears,  attuned  to  the  perception  of  a  few 
octaves  of  vibrating  air,  can  catch  no  note  of 
those  voices  which  sound  on  the  other  side  of 
silence.  To  this  there  is  no  perfect  analogy 
in  earth,  because  all  the  transformations  we 

see   upon   earth   are   strictly   material.     The 

326 


ETERNAL   LIFE 

child  is  born  into  the  world  in  which  the  mother 
lives.  In  the  same  world  in  which  the  egg  lay, 
and  the  caterpillar  crept,  the  bird  and  butterfly 
now  fly.  But  ask  yourself  whether  the  blind 
caterpillar  in  the  dust  knows  aught  of  the  life 
of  the  butterfly  in  the  air,  or  if  the  bird  still 
imprisoned  in  the  egg  knows  aught  of  the  bird 
flying  in  the  vault  of  heaven.  The  butterfly 
hovers  over  the  caterpillar,  he  touches  him,  and 
the  caterpillar  knows  it  not;  or  if  he  did  feel 
the  quiver  of  that  wing,  he  would  not  recognize 
his  risen  brother.  He  must  have  the  butter- 
fly's eyes  before  he  can  see  the  butterfly;  and 
the  caterpillar  is  blind.  The  bird  in  the  egg 
has  eyes,  but  until  birth  breaks  the  shell  he 
cannot  use  them.  So  it  is  the  shell  of  the  old 
material  life  which  closes  our  eyes  to  those 
whose  life  is  wholly  spiritual;  and  yet  they 
may  be  near  us,  they  may  hover  over  us  as  the 
butterfly  hovers  over  the  caterpillar,  they  may 
stretch  their  broad,  protecting  wings  above 

our  heads,  they  may  bless  us  in  many  ways. 

327     - 


In  Gott  ruht  meine  Seele, 
Die  Seele  sieht  ihn  nicht, 

Da,  Gott  den  Herrn  zu  zeigen, 
Die  Zeugen  niedersteigen, 

Christus  voran  als  Licht. 

FECHNER. 


CHAPTER  XVI 

THE   WORD    OF   GOD 

A  FEW  years  ago  an  old  German  missionary 
who  had  spent  his  life  in  working  among  the 
negroes  of  Central  Africa  stopped  in  Boston 
and  came  to  me  to  ask  me  to  help  him  on  his 
homeward  way.  He  remained  over  Sunday 
and  attended  church,  and  he  was  pleased  with 
the  beauty  of  our  services.  As  we  were  saying 
good -by,  he  dropped  on  his  knees,  uttered  a 
short  prayer,  and  kissed  my  hand.  Then  he 
said:  "Dear  friend,  do  not  be  angry  with  me 
if  I  tell  you  something.  The  success  of  any 
church  depends  upon  the  frequency  with 
which  it  echoes  the  name  and  the  praise  of 
Jesus  Christ."  Although  this  book  is  specu- 
lative in  character,  I  cannot  conclude  it  with- 
out a  word  of  thanks  to  Him  to  whom  all  my 

331 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

faith  goes  out,  and  from  whom  I  derive  what 
religious  life  I  possess.  The  arguments  of 
this  work  are  not  all  taken  from  the  Bible, 
yet  as  Fechner  himself  earnestly  contended, 
they  are  not  in  opposition  to  it.  Though 
Jesus  has  not  been  mentioned  frequently 
in  these  pages,  I  trust  that  they  are  not  devoid 
of  His  spirit.  For  Who  has  brought  us  to  the 
knowledge  of  the  one  all-knowing,  all-loving, 
all-compassionate  God  ?  Did  the  heathen, 
with  all  their  wisdom,  know  that  ?  Who  gave 
to  us  the  command  of  love  that  binds  God  and 
man  in  one  mighty  bond  ?  Who  spoke  to  us 
that  certain  word :  All  does  not  end  with  thee 
when  all  seems  to  end,  but  beyond  this  life 
thou  art  secure,  thou  buildest  thyself  a  house 
eternal  in  the  heavens  ?  Who  has  guarded  us 
on  those  dangerous  paths  where  so  many  have* 
lost  their  soul,  their  faith,  their  all  ?  Thousands 
know  not  for  what  they  have  to  thank  Him 
and  therefore  thank  Him  not;  but  deny  Him 

and  despise  Him.    They  think  that  everything 

332 


THE    WORD    OF    GOD 

is  as  it  was  from  the  beginning.  Christ  did 
His  work  so  well  that  it  conceals  Him  as  often 
as  it  reveals  Him.  Christ  is  in  many  places 
when  we  do  not  see  Him,  yet  all  that  He  has 
created  is  His.  We  see  the  great  tree  with  its 
myriad  branches,  its  blossoms,  its  leaves,  its 
fruits,  some  good,  some  bad.  We  see  the 
blossoms  fall,  the  fruit  gathered.  The  leaves 
fade  and  are  carried  away  by  the  wind;  but 
the  root  wre  do  not  see.  And  yet  the  root  and 
the  sunlight  of  God  are  the  cause  of  it  all. 
The  root  of  humanity  is  Jesus  Christ;  but 
all  that  hides  itself  under  the  shadow  of  that 
great  tree  is  not  His.  You  reckon  to  Christ 
the  failings  of  Christians,  but  they  are  not  His 
failings.  You  think  it  is  His  fault  that  that 
falls  which  was  ripe  to  fall ;  but  is  it  not  enough 
that  He  has  established  forever  what  must 
stand  ?  You  lay  on  His  head  all  the  innocent 
blood  that  has  been  shed  by  fanatics  in  His 
name;  but  you  forget  that  His  own  blood  was 

shed  in  the  same  sacred  cause.     You  say  thut 

333 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

many  of  His  ideas  are  to  be  found  among  the 
Jews  and  also  among  the  heathen.  That  in 
itself  is  nothing.  If  they  are  true  ideas  why 
should  they  not  be  found  there?  But  He 
alone  made  those  ideas  the  source  of  a  new 
humanity.  Only  He  had  strength  to  carry 
those  ideas  out.  Christ  said :  "Suffer  the  little 
children  to  come  unto  Me."  That  you  con- 
sider proof  of  intellectual  weakness.  But  are 
we  not  all  brought  to  Christ  as  children  ? 
Was  it  not  then  that  we  received  His  word 
not  questioning,  not  doubting,  and  with  it  an 
imprint  of  piety  and  religion  that  a  whole 
after  life  of  sin  has  not  been  able  to  destroy  ? 
He  holds  you  by  all  the  good  He  has  created 
that  will  not  let  you  go  although  you  would 
let  it  go.  The  name  of  Christ  you  can  deny- 
His  achievement  never;  and  though  you  may 
not  follow  Him  willingly,  yet  are  you  bound 
to  Him  by  the  great  bond  of  the  ideal  that 
unites  all  Christendom.  Above  all  the  truths 

of  heathendom   and   of   the    Old   Testament 

334 


THE    WORD    OF    GOD 

there  rises  a  new  and  higher  truth  in  Christ. 
He  conceived  the  great  thought  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  in  which  all  good  souls  should 
dwell  together  in  love.  Before  Him,  many 
houses  of  God  were  scattered  over  the  earth,  of 
each  of  which  man  said,  "That  is  my  Father's 
house."  He  made  the  whole  earth  the  house 
of  the  one  Father;  and,  beyond  this  earth,  he 
told  us  of  the  heavenly  home  that  awaits  us. 

It  is  not  merely  the  fact  that  He  was  the 
best  and  purest  of  men  which  has  gathered 
His  sheep  from  the  four  quarters  of  heaven 
into  His  fold.  That  must  He  have  been,  yet 
there  have  been  other  men  of  almost  divine 
nature.  It  was  not  merely  that  he  strengthened 
and  deepened  the  old  Hebrew  conception  of 
the  unity  of  God  which  had  stood  and  stood 
still  so  long  in  the  Old  Testament.  But  rather 
that  he  first  conceived  the  thought  of  binding 
men  eternally  to  God  and  to  one  another  and 
that  He  found  within  Himself  strength  suffi- 
cient for  the  purpose.  He  united  men  in 

335 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

the  only  point  of  view  in  which  they  can  all  be 
united  as  children  of  one  Heavenly  Father, 
and  therefore  as  loving,  helping  brothers. 
That  none  had  done  before  Him,  that  none 
could  do  after  Him,  for  He  had  done  it.  Who 
before  Him  had  thought  of  humanity  as  one 
great  body  bound  together  by  ties  of  love 
and  sympathy  ?  So  with  His  truth,  His  love, 
His  person,  He  stands  between  man  and  God 
as  the  being  who  broke  down  the  innumerable 
barriers  that  separated  them  and  eternally 
united  them.  So  He  stands  in  human  history 
as  the  great  bond  that  makes  and  ever  more 
and  more  will  make  humanity  one.  No  higher 
or  more  comprehensive  or  more  saving  idea 
for  humanity  will  ever  arise  than  that  which 
was  revealed  in  Christ;  but  in  Him  it  did  not 
remain  a  mere  idea,  but  it  hastened  on  to 
achievement  and  realization. 

There  is  something  that  has  pre-existed  in 
every  human  being.    No  child  is  born  into  the 

world  as  a  thing  that  is  absolutely  new.    The 

336 


THE    WORD    OF    GOD 

materials  of  which  its  body  is  made  are  as  old 
as  the  earth  itself.  Who  knows  what  other 
houses  they  have  built,  what  bird  or  beast  or 
other  man  they  have  clothed  in  their  strange 
cycles  of  transformation  ?  The  features,  the 
expressions,  all  those  personal  peculiarities 
that  make  us  what  we  are,  are  for  the  most 
part  inherited.  Through  those  liquid  eyes 
another  soul  once  looked  out  upon  this  world. 
Nor  does  the  mind  enter  the  world  bare  and 
featureless,  but  stamped  with  the  achievements 
of  many  dead  and  living  ancestors,  by  which 
its  course  in  life  is  largely  determined  in  the 
cradle.  So  is  it  with  Christ.  The  river  strong 
enough,  deep  enough  to  carry  the  souls  of  all 
mankind  safely  through  time  into  eternity 
did  not  rise  under  our  feet.  The  great  tree, 
with  its  myriad  leaves  and  branches,  which 
are  men  and  nations,  is  not  all  on  the  surface, 
open  to  the  gaze  of  men.  It  is  anchored  by 
invisible  roots  to  the  framework  of  the  universe. 

We  can  see  plainly  that  all  the  faith  and  love 

337 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

that  had  ever  existed  on  earth,  the  best  and 
purest  love  for  God  and  man  from  the  begin- 
ning, slowly  grew  together  into  Him,  and 
without  them  He  could  not  have  come.  The 
prophets  of  old,  who  saw  so  plainly  what  the 
Perfect  One  must  be,  did  more  than  fore- 
shadow Him ;  they  did  more  than  prepare  the 
way  before  Him.  In  them  the  spirit  of  Christ 
dwelt  and  through  them  the  Word  spake. 
And  yet  it  was  needful  that  that  Word  should 
take  flesh,  i.e.,  that  the  Spirit  of  God  should 
incarnate  itself  in  human  life.  Otherwise,  as 
with  Philo,  it  would  have  remained  a  barren 
word,  a  mere  idea.  The  artist  has  his  concep- 
tion, the  poet  his  inspiration,  but  unless  they 
are  clothed  with  flesh  and  begin  their  struggle 
with  hard,  intractable  matter,  they  vanish 
and  leave  not  a  wrack  behind.  That  is  the 
difference  between  the  creator  and  the  dreamer. 
In  the  one  the  word  takes  flesh,  in  the  other 
it  does  not.  A  generation  or  so  ago  the  thought 

was  generally  in  the  air  that  human  slavery 

338 


THE   WORD    OF    GOD 

is  wrong,  that  the  souls  and  bodies  of  men 
and  women  cannot  be  bought  and  sold ;  espe- 
cially that  such  an  institution  is  a  gross  incon- 
sistency in  a  nation  which  professes  to  be 
founded  in  liberty,  and  that  a  house  so  divided 
could  not  stand.  The  thought  was  in  the  air 
and  it  remained  a  mere  thought.  Then  it  took 
flesh  in  the  great  heart  of  Abraham  Lincoln, 
and  it  became  an  issue  for  which  a  million 
men  laid  down  their  lives.  In  Lincoln  this 
word  took  flesh.  He  lived  for  it  —  rather, 
it  lived  in  him.  Little  by  little  its  claims  grew 
even  to  the  last  full  measure  of  sacrifice. 
It  demanded  more,  but  the  more  it  demanded 
the  more  it  gave  —  to  the  slave  freedom, 
to  this  nation  a  new  birth  in  liberty,  to  Lincoln 
himself  imperishable  immortality,  an  added 
stature,  a  claim  on  the  heart  of  humanity 
that  he  could  have  gained  in  no  other  way. 

Bismarck  dreamt  of  a  United  Fatherland. 
To  him  the  revelation  was  made  of  a  united 

and    glorious    Germany,      Suppose    he    had 

339 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

contented  himself  with  merely  thinking  about 
it  or  talking  about  it  with  friends  over  a  pipe, 
or  with  writing  about  it.  Ten  thousand  per- 
sons would  have  proved  to  him  the  absolute 
impossibility  of  such  a  scheme.  So  he  kept 
silence  about  it.  For  forty  years  that  man  alone 
wrestled  with  incalculable  odds.  For  forty 
years  he  opposed  his  gigantic  will  to  England, 
Austria,  France,  and  Russia,  not  to  speak  of 
endless  opposition  at  home.  But  in  the  end 
he  triumphed.  Why?  Because  he  had  the 
word  that  nobody  else  had,  and  because  in 
him  it  was  not  a  vain,  inoperative  word,  but  a 
word  incarnate,  first  in  Bismarck's  heart,  then 
in  the  hearts  of  some  fifty  million  Germans. 

Charles  Darwin,  reading  one  day  an  old 
half -forgotten  book,  came  across  an  idea. 
Mai  thus,  in  his  Principles  of  Population,  had 
more  than  once  expressed  the  opinion  that  the 
hardships  of  life,  cold,  famine,  war,  and  disease, 
check  the  increase  of  the  population,  in  con- 
sequence of  which  those  who  are  most  sheltered 

340 


THE    WORD    OF    GOD 

from  such  evils  are  most  likely  to  reach  ma- 
turity and  to  leave  a  progeny  behind  them, 
It  was  an  idea  Darwin  had  long  been  looking 
for.  Thousands  of  other  persons  had  also 
encountered  it  and  had  ridiculed  it  and  reviled 
it.  Darwin,  however,  perceived  its  significance. 
Suppose  he  had  contented  himself  with  merely 
echoing  it,  and  with  expressing  his  opinion 
that  it  was  true.  Would  that  have  con- 
vinced anyone  ?  Would  that  have  had  the 
slightest  effect  on  the  history  of  thought? 
Darwin  knew  better  than  that.  In  him  the 
word  took  flesh.  It  became  from  that  moment 
the  motive  of  his  life.  He  spent  the  remainder 
of  his  days  in  applying  it  to  life  in  ten  thou- 
sand forms,  and  by  these  efforts  Darwin  suc- 
ceeded in  permanently  modifying  the  thought 
of  the  world  as  only  four  or  five  other  men 
have  done. 

The   problem   of   Jesus   is   something   like 
this.     A  being  whom  we  regard  as  a  divine 

being  undertakes  to  mediate  between  us  and 

341* 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

God,  that  is  to  say,  to  bring  us  all,  in  all  our 
relations,  physical  and  spiritual,  into  peace 
and  harmony  with  God,  by  suppressing  in  us 
all  that  is  opposed  to  God's  will,  all  that  is 
sinful,  injurious,  and  destructive  to  us  and  to 
others,  and  by  bringing  all  that  is  good  in  us 
to  its  highest  perfection.  This  is  the  problem. 
To  do  this  such  a  being  must  sound  our  life 
in  every  direction.  He  must  know  not  only 
what  is  best  and  highest  in  us,  but  what  is 
lowest  and  worst.  He  must  be  all  in  all  to  us, 
father,  mother,  brother,  sister,  friend,  a  soul 
within  our  soul.  He  must  Himself  be  Son  of 
Man,  as  none  of  us  ever  was  or  can  be.  He 
must  know  all.  He  must  touch  all  in  order  that 
at  last  all  may  know  Him  and  touch  Him  and 
act  by  His  spirit  and  according  to  His  purpose. 
How  is  this  possible  ?  Perhaps  I  can  best 
tell  you  how  it  is  possible  by  showing  you  how 
it  actually  happens.  Many  thoughts,  many 
motives  rise  and  sink  in  our  minds,  some 

noble,  some  base,  not  all  equally  important. 

342 


THE    WORD    OF   GOD 

But  one  day  there  comes  a  moment  ordained 
on  high  and  winged  by  the  Providence  of  God, 
when  a  thought  awakes  of  everlasting  impor- 
tance because  it  gives  direction  to  our  whole 
subsequent  life,  to  which,  little  by  little,  the 
flow  of  all  our  thoughts  and  all  our  acts  must 
yield. 

I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  this  higher  thought 
overpowers  us  at  once,  or  occupies  us  ex- 
clusively, but  only  that  henceforth  everything 
we  think  or  do  receives  an  influence  from  it, 
and  in  turn  contributes  to  the  leading  motive 
of  our  life.  To  some  this  leading  motive 
comes  early,  to  others  later.  To  some  it  comes 
after  long  years  of  patient  search.  To  others 
it  reveals  itself  suddenly  in  an  unexpected 
event,  an  unforeseen  circumstance,  a  new  af- 
fection ;  never  without  preparation,  though  the 
purpose  of  that  preparation  may  have  been  com- 
pletely hidden  from  us.  In  some  way,  at  last 
the  purpose  of  our  own  life  dawns  on  us.  The 

thought  breaks  out  from  its  enveloping  seed 

343 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

in  which  it  has  slumbered  so  long.  We  realize 
that  life  is  not  a  mere  series  of  days  and  years 
to  be  lived  through,  a  poor  fluctuating,  fruitless 
thing  that  changes  from  day  to  day,  but  a  pur- 
pose, a  determinate  aim  by  which  we  grow 
stronger  and  react  more  powerfully  on  the 
world  from  day  to  day.  Yet  it  requires  time 
before  our  whole  life  yields  to  this  thought. 
For  a  long  time  our  habits,  our  other  thoughts, 
the  ten  thousand  weaknesses  of  the  flesh,  rebel 
and  threaten  to  choke  the  immortal  plant  in  its 
infancy.  The  image  of  this  part  of  life  is 
Hercules  strangling  the  serpents  that  surround 
his  cradle,  the  lazy  monsters  that  would 
destroy  the  young  child  at  his  birth.  Our 
inclinations  drawr  us  one  wray;  the  revealed 
purpose  of  our  life  draws  us  another.  Will 
the  thought  conquer?  And  if  it  does  not  con- 
quer, what  will  become  of  us  ?  Shall  we  find 
another  thought  that  will  conquer,  or  shall  we 
fall  a  prey  to  the  serpents  ?  But  just  as  far  as 

the  purpose  of  our  life  does  conquer,  peace 

344 


THE    WORD    OF    GOD 

follows;  and  the  more  the  higher  thought  con- 
trols our  whole  life  the  deeper  our  peace. 
Only  goodness  can  work  this  miracle.  Evil 
knows  no  spell  that  can  subdue  all  the  powers 
of  our  soul  and  make  them  work  willingly  and 
harmoniously  for  one  end.  Therefore,  every 
sin  is  dissipation,  i.e.,  the  loosening  of  the  bond 
that  unites  our  energies. 

Just  as  far  as  this  higher  purpose  takes 
possession  of  our  spirit,  it  becomes  our  medi- 
ator, our  redeemer,  our  revealer.  The  world 
shines  in  its  light.  It  rescues,  delivers,  saves 
us  from  evil  and  unites  us  to  God.  But  to  so 
many,  you  say,  this  higher  thought,  this  abid- 
ing motive  of  life,  does  not  come.  Say,  rather, 
it  has  not  won  the  victory.  In  spite  of  the 
emptiness  and  frivolity  of  our  lives,  is  there 
any  one  who  dares  to  say  that  to  him  or  to  her 
the  opportunity  was  never  given  ?  Or  is  it 
that  the  seed  that  springeth  unto  life  eternal 
was  choked  ?  that  the  serpents  strangled 

Hercules  ?  that  the  word,  -the  word  of  God  in 

345 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

us,  was  not  made  flesh,  but  remained  a  bare 
inoperative  word,  that  haunts  us  sometimes, 
but  does  not  bless  us  ?  But  that  word  which 
has  incarnated  itself  in  your  life,  that  higher 
thought,  that  purifying  ministry  that  has  been 
your  mediator  with  God,  your  saviour  from 
an  empty  and  wrasted  life,  is  the  fruit  of  Christ's 
soul  working  in  you.  It  is  simply  one  ex- 
ample in  the  little  world  of  what  God  through 
Christ  is  doing  in  the  great  world,  in  you  and  in 
millions  of  other  souls.  As  the  mind  has  its 
thoughts,  God  has  His  spirits.  As  our  life 
is  dominated  by  a  highest  motive,  God  guides 
and  leads  the  world  through  His  highest  Spirit 
which  must  be  tabernacled  in  flesh  to  do  His 
work,  which  must  leave  the  Father's  house  and 
go  forth  into  the  world,  which  must  leave  the 
One  to  save  the  many.  Whatever  our  motives 
and  purposes  in  life,  we  must  yet  measure  them 
and  judge  them  by  the  supreme  purpose  of 
God  as  revealed  in  Christ.  And  though  you 

do  not  now  clearly  see  what  Christ  has  had 

346 


THE   WORD    OF    GOD 

to  do  with  much  of  your  life,  you  will  yet  see  it. 
Only  that  part  of  your  life  which  cannot  be 
brought  into  harmony  with  Christ  will  be  taken 
from  you;  only  goodness  is  eternal.  So  if 
you  would  see  how  Jesus  is  the  Mediator  of 
all  the  world,  how  He  redeems  us  all  from 
sin,  how  He  makes  evil  serve  the  good,  how 
in  a  word  He  unites  us  to  God,  you  have  only 
to  look  back  over  your  own  life  and  see  what 
He  has  done  for  you.  And  what  He  now  does 
for  you  imperfectly  He  will  yet  do  perfectly. 
And  what  He  now  does  for  some  He  will  yet 
do  for  all.  That  is  the  meaning  of  Christ's 
incarnation.  That  was  why  it  was  necessary 
for  the  Word  to  take  flesh.  And  yet  that  in- 
carnation, those  thirty  years  of  wandering 
here  below,  as  far  as  this  world  is  concerned, 
was  but  the  beginning  of  Jesus,  the  seed  out  of 
which,  as  he  promised,  has  grown  the  tree  that 
overshadows  the  earth,  and  ever  more  and 
more  will  overshadow  it.  That  was  the  light 

then  shining  in  darkness  that  now  lightens 

347 


THE    LIVING    WORD 

the  world  and  ever  more  and  more  will  lighten 
it.  The  cross  on  which  He  was  raised  now 
shines  in  gold  on  thousands  of  churches. 
Kings,  instead  of  persecuting  and  wishing  to 
kill  Him,  bow  before  Him.  Wise  men  cast 
the  riches  of  their  wisdom  at  the  feet  of  Him 
under  whose  banner  every  thinking  man  must 
ultimately  march,  and  every  age  cries  con- 
fidently as  it  passes  in,  and  more  confidently 
as  it  passes  out:  "the  Kingdom  of  God  is 
coming." 


348 


THE    WORD    OF    GOD 

BETHLEHEM    AND    GOLGOTHA 

In  Bethlehem,  aye,  He  was  born, 

Who  came  to  bring  us  life  and  light,  — 
On  Golgotha  He  did  not  scorn 

Upon  the  Cross  to  break  Death's  might,  — 
I  journeyed  from  the  Western  strand 
To  many  a  distant  Eastern  land, 
Nor  greater  in  the  world  I  saw 
Than  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha! 

The  old  world's  Seven  Wonders  great, — 

Behold  how  Time  has  laid  them  low, 
The  pride  and  pomp  of  earthly  state, 

How  soon  Heaven's  power  can  overthrow; 
Where'er  my  wandering  steps  might  stray, 
I  saw  but  ruin  and  decay. 
Alone  in  strength  Time  cannot  mar 
Stand  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha! 

What  mockery  the  Pyramids! 

In  them  the  darkness  of  the  grave, 
The  very  peace  of  Death  forbids 

Their  builders  vainly  hoped  they  gave,  — 
The  Sphinx  colossal  could  not  read 
Life's  riddle  in  man's  hour  of  need, 
Now  solved,  and  none  its  light  shall  bar,  — 
By  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha! 

Fair  Roknabad,  Earth's  Paradise! 

Where  Shiraz'  roses  breathe  their  balm,  — 
Ye  sea-girt  shores  perfumed  with  spice, 

And  India's  groves  of  stately  palm! 
349 


THE     LIVING    WORD 

Adown  each  aisle  and  flowery  bed, 
I  see  Death's  dark  and  stealthy  tread. 

Look  up !   Life  comes  to  you  —  not  far,  — 

From  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha! 

Thou  Kaaba,  black  and  desert  stone, 
On  which  the  foot  of  half  the  world 
Still  stumbles,  guard  thy  moonlit  throne, 
Ere  to  destruction  thou  art  hurled. 
The  moon  before  the  sun  shall  pale, 
And  thou  before  thy  Conqueror  quail,  — 
Hero,  to  whom  "  Victoria!  " 
Cry  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha. 

O  Thou,  who  in  a  manger  poor, 

Didst  choose  a  helpless  Babe  to  lie, 
Didst  shame  and  pain  of  Cross  endure, 
To  take  from  us  our  pain  thereby; 
The  Manger  seems  too  base  to  pride, 
The  haughty  still  the  Cross  deride, 
While  Virtues  all  with  Meekness  are, 
In  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha! 

The  Wise  the  Shepherds'  star  obeyed, 

And  Kings  in  adoration  stood, 
And  many  a  pilgrimage  they  made 
To  kneel  before  the  Holy  Rood. 

And  such  a  storm  of  strife  was  born, 
The  world,  yet  not  the  Cross,  was  torn, 
As  East  and  West  the  conflict  saw, 
O'er  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha! 

350 


THE   WORD    OF   GOD 

Oh!   let  us  not  with  warring  sword, 
But  with  the  Spirit  take  the  field, 
And  fight  for  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord, 
With  weapons  He  Himself  did  wield, 
And  with  the  Apostle  as  our  guide, 
Send  out  the  light  on  every  side, 
Till  all  the  world  its  light  shall  draw 
From  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha! 

With  pilgrim  hat  and  staff  I  sought 
In  farthest  Eastern  land  to  roam, 
And  from  my  pilgrimage  have  brought 
This  faithful  message  to  your  home, 
Oh!   go  not  forth  with  scrip  and  stave 
To  seek  God's  cradle  or  His  grave, 
But  look  within  you,  lo!  —  there  are 
Your  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha. 

O  Heart,  why  fare  to  foreign  land 

His  lowly  cradle  to  adore, 
Or,  in  rapt  wonderment  to  stand 

By  grave  which  holds  thy  Lord  no  more  ? 
That  He  in  thee  has  had  His  birth, 
And  that  thou  diest  unto  earth 
And  liv'st,  to  Him  —  this  only,  —  ah, 
Is  Bethlehem  and  Golgotha! 

FRIEDRICH   RUCKERT. 

Translated  by  Zitella  Cocke. 


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